Man Out of Time
by princeaquitaine
Summary: This follows the story of Archer, the Sole Survivor of Vault 111; frozen in time, and then released into a bizarre and dangerous post-nuclear-fallout Commonwealth. Readers familiar with the Fallout 4 story will note that I have tweaked certain things so that the events that fit into my character's story will coalesce into a more cohesive narrative. Very Adult Content
1. Entry 1

"… War never changes," Archer concluded in the steamed mirror while trimming his beard. He was going over his speech for the veteran's hall as he got ready for the day. He appraised his appearance for a moment, then made a slight adjustment just under his chin.

"You're gonna knock 'em dead at the veteran's hall, hon," Nate appeared from where he had been combing his hair.

"You think?"

"Absolutely," he replied, then added with a smirk; "now finish getting ready and stop hogging the mirror."

"Right," Archer mumbled distractedly as he gave himself a final once-over, though he knew if he kept worrying at his beard he'd only ruin in. He kept a groomed yet rugged appearance; he had a strong jawline with a broad, flat nose and thick, angular brows set over bright brown eyes. His complexion, though not the clearest, was even and had a nice tan from regular yardwork. His hair, short on the sides but exceptionally long on top and falling to one side, was naturally red, almost burgundy. He decided his appearance was satisfactory, and stepped away from the mirror then slipped on a pair of jeans and a plain tee.

Pacing into the living room, he saw Codsworth had only just prepared his coffee, which sat steaming in its mug on the kitchen island. He pulled up a stool and reached for the coffee as the robot noticed his arrival:

"Oh good morning, sir! Your coffee, one hundred and seventy-three point five degree Fahrenheit. Brewed to perfection!" The family's Mr. Handy preened himself in its very butler-esque programmed tone; the rotund bot hovered in place with its three arms, one holding the coffee pot and the other extending a copy of the paper towards Archer. Archer nodded in acknowledgement as he accepted the newspaper. It was only more of the same; he set it aside and downed his coffee, allowing the hot, bitter drink to help him to wake up.

In lieu of the paper he reached for his most recent edition of Grognak the Barbarian and, just as he began to continue from where he had left off, he heard Shaun begin to cry in his cradle; he started to get up but hesitated as he noticed Codsworth starting off for his son's room. "Oh, looks like someone made a stinky! I shall tend to young Shaun," Codsworth announced as he floated off, having set the coffeepot on the table.

Archer was admittedly nervous for his address tonight; he wasn't given to making speeches or public appearances. After finishing his tour of duty he had settled into the quiet life (by comparison) of an engineer for the General Atomics factory which was about a twenty-minute drive away. His boss had decided to volunteer him to give the speech in an attempt to offset the anti-war sentiment which had been spreading around the plant. "Do I look nervous? I look nervous, don't I," he said to Nate as he entered the living room.

"You're going to do great," Nate said with a reassuring smile.

At that moment, the doorbell rang.

"Oh, will you get that? It's probably that salesman. He's been stopping by for you every day." Nate asked. Archer grunted an affirmative and stepped over to the door, opening it with a grimace set to his face.

"Good morning! Vault-Tec calling!" the cheerful little sales rep announced immediately, making a rehearsed step forward with a gracious nod, hand held to his hat while the other grasped a clipboard nervously.

"Good morning," Archer said with faint irritation.

"Isn't it!" he replied, making a broad sweeping gesture and glancing around. "Just look at that sky out there." He cleared his throat, clearly ready to get to the point. "You can't begin to know how happy I am to finally speak with you. I've been trying for days; it's a matter of utmost urgency, I assure you." This last sentence was punctuated with emphatic gesturing of the clipboard.

"Well, I'm here now," Archer said. "What's so important?"

"Why, nothing less than your entire future," he said, happy to get into his spiel. "If you haven't noticed, sir, this country has gone to heck and a half, if you'll excuse my language," here he noticed the tri-fold American flag in the entry, and glanced down nervously. Then he started again: "The big kaboom-" this with more emphatic gesturing, "- it's inevitable, I'm afraid. And coming sooner than you might think if you catch me meaning? Now, I know you're a busy man, so I won't take up much of your time, time being a, uh, precious commodity, and I'm here to tell you that because of your service to our country, you have been pre-selected for entrance into the local Vault! Vault One-Eleven," He added on the last phrase with a reverent tone and a flourish of the clipboard.

"That sounds great," Archer said, unsure quite how to respond.

"Oh, it is! Believe you me. Now, you're already cleared for entrance, in the unforeseen event of, uh," he leaned in and continued quietly, almost conspiratorially, "Total atomic annihilation." He then said, in a professional tone, "I just need to verify some information, that's all."

Archer nodded and accepted the clipboard which was ceremoniously thrust to him. It was very basic paperwork – his name, some information on his physical fitness and medical history and his level of education, his occupation – he filled it out hurriedly and returned it to the Vault-Tec rep, who looked quite uncomfortable. "I can't wait for the world to end!" he added sardonically.

"Splendid," he said awkwardly. "Splendid.. Just gonna walk this over to the vault. Congratulations on being prepared for he future!" with one final flourish he backed away as Archer closed the door. He groaned tiredly.

"Hey, it's only a little paperwork. That's worth peace of mind, right?" Nate said from where he was seated at the couch, watching the news.

"For you and Shaun, no price is too high," Archer responded playfully.

"Good answer," he chuckled.

"I have my moments," he said as he leaned over the sofa back to give him a peck on the cheek. He then noticed that Shaun was still crying; clearly Codsworth lacked the paternal touch.

As if on cue, Codsworth swept into the room, announcing with despair: "Sir, Shaun simply refuses to calm down! Perhaps he needs a little of that paternal affection you seem to be so good at."

Archer straightened up as Nate said, "You heard him. Go on," he ushered. The dutiful husband headed in to see to Shaun. As always, seeing the infant in his cradle was enough to cheer him up. For a minute, he wasn't nervous – wasn't thinking about his potentially humiliating upcoming speech.

"Hey there, little guy-" he said in a gentle, hushed tone as he approached the crib and reached out to give play with Shaun's hand. A hand so small that it was barely larger than the tip of his thumb, which amazed Archer endlessly. Shaun quieted down at the touch of his father's hand and latched himself to it feebly.

"Spin the mobile a bit; he loves that." Archer heard Nate suggest from back behind him. "How are my two favorite men doing?" He added, a subtle note of pride in his voice, as he approached Archer and placed his hand comfortably on the small of Archer's back, who was still absorbed in staring at their baby. Archer reached up and spun the mobile; Shaun laughed the ebullient, sporadic laugh of an infant.

Archer straightened up and set an arm over Nate's shoulders. He was tall, and quite muscular. He possessed a combination of fortunate genetics as well as military training, a rigorous regime which he still maintained, and he was easily a head taller than Nate, who was slender by comparison, short, with golden blonde hair groomed into a near-pompadour, a freckled pale complexion, and beautifully clear blue eyes. Nate nuzzled into Archer's side and said, absentmindedly, "I was thinking of going to the park today. That salesman was right – it is beautiful outside."

Archer grinned mischievously and said "And, uh, have some fun? Like that one time?"

Nate nudged him, bashful, and said, "Come on, we're dads now. We can't do that!" Archer chuckled good-naturedly. The moment was practically perfect until they heard Codsworth's voice, alarmed, coming from the living room:

"Sir! Da! You best come see this!" Archer groaned in annoyance, and a moment later he heard alarms outside. Exchanging concerned looks, he and Nate hurried to the living room. Nate scooped up little Shaun, who had begun to cry again with the sounding of the alarms.

"Codsworth? What's wrong?" Nate called.

Archer found Codsworth anxious in front of the television – well, as anxious as a floating robotic orb with three limbs can be – as the newscaster was muttering something in a shocked tone.

"Followed by… ye, followed by flashes. Blinding flashes. Sounds of explosions… we're trying to get confirmations. But we seem to have lost connection with our affiliate stations…We do have coming in, confimed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania…"

Archer was stunned. He acted on instinct, no longer listening to the television. "You have Shaun?" He called to Nate, who nodded, also in shock, and said "We have to get to the vault. Hurry!" He grabbed his shoes and held Shaun was Nate did the same, then Nate took Shaun back and the fled the home amid confused protests from Codsworth.

Outside, the neighborhood was entirely transformed. They lived in a picturesque little cul-de-sac called Sanctuary, full of perfectly groomed suburban homes, and yet the streets were now lined with their panicked neighbors and military personnel who urgently guided certain persons to the Vault.

Archer already knew where it was – its construction had been a subject of local interest, and he had passed it occasionally hiking in the woods around their neighborhood. Taking Nate by the arm, they rushed down the street and out a hiking path to one side which was now transformed into a military corridor.

"For God's sake, leave the suitcase!" He heard a man calling to his wife, who was bent over an open suitcase collecting the things that had spilled out. "They have this shit in the Vault!" The woman, crying, complied and they fled towards the Vault.

Archer, with Nate and Shaun in tow, approached the chain-link fence surrounding the entrance to the Vault – now flanked by Vault personnel in jumpsuits and military in power armor – and approached a Vault-Tec official who was confirming entrance for the panicked customers. In front of him, the salesman from before stood protesting – "What do you mean I'm not on the list! I am Vault-Tec!" The official ordered him to stand by.

Archer and family approached and he insisted urgently, "We need into the Vault! I'm on the list – under Archer!"

The man perused his list unhurriedly, mumbling, "Two adult males, one infant – yes, everything seems to be in order. Let them through," he called over his shoulder to the guards. They passed through – everything was a daze, and they hardly noticed their surroundings as they were lead up to the Vault by another official in a blue jumpsuit and a hardhat.

"What about all those people! What's going to happen to them?!" Nate called to the man, concerned.

"We're trying to take care of as many as we can. For now, just get yourselves into the vault. Just step onto the platform there," he gestured to the huge, gear-shaped metal platform before them. To one side was a control center. There were already several people on the platform, waiting to be lowered into the vault. Archer recognized a few of them, but they were all silent amid the surreal nature of their situation.

The vault elevator lurched slowly downward just as – on the horizon – Archer saw something he had hoped never to witness. A light, which could only be described as blinding and white, flashed in a massive detonation, followed by the iconic mushroom-shaped cloud. And yet the elevator was so slow, surely they could speed this up-

Everyone panicked. One of his neighbors shouted, "Can't this thing go any faster?" Just as they were about shoulder-deep down into the entrance, they felt the shockwave of the explosion. It was still strong enough, even at this distance, to kick up dust and knock everyone off-balance.

Despite the elevator's best attempts to stall them, they made it into the Vault. Vault 111.

Archer was slowly calming down with the knowledge that they were now safe. He had read up on the Vaults when they had announced the construction of this one – they were incredibly durable, strong enough to resist a direct nuclear blast and built to be totally self-sufficient, even against the pervasive radiation which would accompany a nuclear detonation.

The grate separating the Vault from the elevator lifted as a robotic voice announced their arrival. There they found industrial-style metal stairs leading up onto a decontamination platform. Archer led Nate, who was totally silent and held onto Shaun protectively, up the steps and through the decontamination unit. It blared a loud confirmation as they passed through – one tech said, unimportantly to the side, that they were clean – and they were approached by another tech who was proffering them blue jumpsuits.

Archer accepted the two suits. "Thanks," he said in a hollow voice. "What now?"

"Just follow the doctor here. He'll show you where to go." The woman smiled warmly at him and he nodded, then followed the man who had been standing to the side. He was older, with silvery hair and a dignified lab coat.

"Alright, you three, follow me." The doctor said, waving them on as he headed down a corridor to their left. Archer took a moment to notice that the Vault had a very industrial, near-military look – which wasn't surprising. It was all metal, with pipes and bundles of cords running down every wall. Machinery lined the corridor they were being lead through. "Oh, you're going to love it here," the doctor was rambling cheerfully, was he walked ahead of them, not even aware of whether they were listening or not. "This is one of our most advanced facilities! Not that the others aren't great, mind you…" He added with a note of pride.

A man and woman were standing to the side as they passed – Archer noticed, through a window, a mostly unlit chamber holding rows of unidentifiable machinery. It took, he supposed, quite a lot of machinery to build a self-sufficient community belowground. He caught a bit of their conversation as they passed: "It's gone… our home… Everything we had…" The man was muttering, processing the chaos which was still ensuing aboveground.

They continued down the hallway; Nate finally spoke up. "How long will we be down here?"

"Oh, we'll be going over all that in orientation," the doctor called over his shoulder. "Just a few medical items we have to get through first. Just to check them off the list."

They had entered into a chamber flanked with what appeared to be some sort of pods. Despite his background in engineering, it wasn't apparent to Archer what they were for. A few other residents, already in their form-fitting blue and yellow vault suits, were talking to one side.

"The suits are designed to be fashionable as well as comfortable," one woman was saying, clearly impressed. Archer wasn't certain why they couldn't wear their normal clothing.

"Prepared for the future!" another said in agreement.

"Such a lovely family you have," Archer heard a staff member say to him from next to one of the pods. "I hope you love it here." Archer smiled appreciatively for the encouragement and continued to where the doctor had stopped just in front of the last pods in the row.

"Just step in here, and put your vault suit on," the doctor said, gesturing to the two pods on either side of him.

"What about Shaun?" Nate said. Archer was already stripping out of his pants and shirt, and slipping on the vault suit. That one woman had been right – they were certainly comfortable.

"One of you can hold him. You'll only be in the pods for a minute as it goes through a decontamination. It's completely safe for the little guy," the doctor replied. Archer took Shaun as Nate donned his suit. Nate then reached for Shaun again, and Archer handed the infant to him. Nate seemed to be holding onto Shaun to comfort himself nearly as much as he was to comfort the child. Archer took his hand for a moment, reassuringly.

"Don't worry – we're safe now." He said and gave Nate a reassuring grin, then turned to step into the pod. He felt claustrophobic for just a moment door to the pod lowered from above him, and he saw Nate doing the same, fawning over Shaun and comforting him. He gave them both a wave as he heard the doctor.

"The pod will decontaminate and depressurize you before we head deeper into the vault. Just relax." He said as to tech staff came to engage devices at the sides of the pods.

A programmed voice announced from within the pod: "Resident secure. Occupant vitals: normal. Procedure complete. In 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…" He was vaguely aware of the pod begin to chill, and then nothing at all.


	2. Entry 2

On the periphery of his awareness, what seemed like mere moments later, he heard the robotic voice:

"Manual override initiated. Cryogenic stasis suspended."

Before he could even process what was happening, the first thing of which he was sharply aware was the cold. He felt a freezing chill over his whole body – he had't yet realized why. The window through which he was able to perceive the pod ahead of him – Nate's pod, gradually cleared and was defogged. He saw a man, bald and short, with what looked like a metal arm… flanked by two individuals in hazmat suits.

He heard one of them, a woman judging by the voice, saying: "This is the one. Here." As they approached Nate's pod.

"Wh.. What… Nate…" He tried to speak but his voice was hoarse and the cold made it difficult to speak; his tongue felt swollen and heavy in his mouth, and he gripped his arms about him as he was taken with convulsive shivers.

"Open it." The man answered. He didn't look like Vault-Tec. Something was off here. Archer tried to protest, but the words fell flat and quiet.

The door lifted, and Archer heard Shaun begin to cry, and Nate leaned forward, coughing. His heart raced – he didn't know what was going on, but it was wrong. He had to help them. He looked around for a handle, anything to open the pod, fruitlessly. He heard Nate's voice:

"Is it over?" he said between coughs. "Are we safe?"

"Almost," the man said. "Everything's going to be fine." One of the hazmat people – the woman? Archer didn't know – was reaching for Shaun. Why was she reaching for Shaun?

"I've got him," Nate said, holding the crying infant to his chest. "I'm fine."

"Let the boy go." The man said, drawing a pistol and pointing it at Nate. Archer was hysterical; he tried to pound on the window, tried to scream, but his body was so weak and his voice was failing him. He had to help. Had to stop this, somehow, but he didn't know how. He felt tears welling up and freezing on his cheeks.

"I'm not giving you Shaun!" Nate yelled out, defiant, pulling back as the hazmat tried to wrestle his boy from his grip. Archer found his voice.

"Nate! Shaun!" He called out, desperately, futilely, then to the strangers, "Stop it! You're going to hurt him! Let him go!" He was ignored. Perhaps they couldn't even hear him.

He heard the gun go off, and instantly Nate was still. His arms fell to his sides and the woman took Shaun. All was quiet for a moment, except for Shaun's crying. Archer slumped forward, the wind knocked from his chest, and it's as if he were frozen again. For a moment, time stopped and the only thing he could see was the red hole which now sat in Nate's forehead; the blood which was streaming down his face; the man, lowering the gun and turning to the two others. Without even being aware of it, Archer screamed and would have collapsed to the ground if the pod weren't so restricting.

As if noticing him for the first time, the man turned to Archer's pod – he noticed a prominent scar across his face. "Goddamnit!" the man said in frustration. "Get the kid out of here, and let's go…" He stepped right up to Archer's pod. "At least we still have the backup." Archer banged his fist against the glass to no avail as the computerized voice spoke up:

"Cryogenic sequence reinitialized." And Archer faded out of consciousness once again.

It was only for a moment, though. Again, he was aware of his surroundings as he came out of stasis for a second time. He gasped and sputtered, and was aware of an alarm blaring.

"Error. All residents must vacate immediately." The door to the pod swung open, and Archer collapsed to the metal floor with a dense thud. There he stayed for a moment, shivering and in pain. He let out a pained scream as he tried to move his limbs, which were shivering and stiff. He clamored across the floor to Nate's pod, which had remained shut. Using the pod for support he pulled himself up, fumbled over to the adjacent dashboard.

"Come on, come on, come on!" He was muttering in frustration. "There has to be a release…"

He found it as he clumsily messed with the various buttons on the dashboard until he found it. He pulled on the marked release bar. There was a buzzing, and then the door swung open. He caught Nate's limp, heavy body as it begun to swing forward and clutched his husband to his chest, tears streaming down his face and he felt Nate's ice-cold body against his. He steadied Nate against the pod, and sat like that for awhile. He felt numb, and he could barely fight back the urge to scream again. In the messy haze of his thoughts, he felt only two things. The first was shocked confusion. Who would do this? Why would someone do this? He felt every fiber of his being protest.

The second emotion, which came to him in fierce acuteness, was anger: rage so intense that it cut through the fog of shock, fear, and grief.

He slowly released Nate back into the chair; he saw his wedding ring catch the light, and gingerly slid it off his Nate's finger. He didn't know what to do, but he couldn't stay here. The alarm blared persistently and he knew he had to leave. He wished he didn't have to leave Nate like this, but there was nothing to be done. He had to escape this death trap.

Slipping Nate's ring into his vault suit pocket, he said only this: "I will find whoever did this. And I will make him pay." He gave Nate one last kiss on his cheek, and then wiped away his tears on his sleeve.

Turning, he confronted the empty, mostly dark room with a line of closed pods. Stepping carefully forward, still somewhat weak, he noticed that the other pods had remained shut. Peering into them, he saw his neighbors still frozen. Why hadn't their pods opened? He tried to pull the release on one of the pods, in which he saw his neighbor, Mrs. Able. Nothing happened. Were they alive? Were they dead, but frozen in place?

"Where… where is everybody?" He mumbled, still too cold to speak clearly. He made his way down the corridors until he came to the door.

He was moving robotically, not even quite aware of where he was going, but the door he arrived at after a series of blind turns wouldn't open. He saw one to his side and went through it into what appeared to be a service room. He caught movement on the edge of his vision, through a window.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" He called out to no avail. He moved through the room, down a series of short corridors, and arrived at what appeared to be a generator room. He saw movement again, something short and oblong crawling between the generators. There was a snap and the smell of ozone and electricity arced from the tip of one of the generators and whatever it was, was still. Archer edged closed and saw… a bug? It was huge. It looked like a cockroach.

"Is that a giant… cockroach?" He muttered. "What the hell?" That thing had to be at least two feet long, but he didn't try to approach for a closer look because that generator had clearly malfunctioned. Maybe it was the reason for the pods' shutting down.

The two generators were surrounded by a metal catwalk that bordered the room. Archer walked around, keeping close to the wall, when he saw another one of the bugs ahead of him.

At the same time, the roach seemed to notice him as well. It began to crawl towards him, and on instinct he stepped back as the insect flung itself at him – clearly these things had become more bold as they had grown huge. When it landed, Archer stomped on it, hard, bringing the heel of his boot down on its head. There was a crunch as he stomped through the roach's exoskeleton, and it was still.

"Fucking hell…" Archer muttered, lifting his foot out of the now-still giant roach, and scraped his heel across the floor. He turned to resume his course – he clearly couldn't stay here. There was a door on the far side of the room from where he had entered, and he passed through it, and into what looked like a barracks. Everything was in disarray and, again, there was nobody here. It became apparent that everyone living had fled long ago. "What happened to everybody?" Archer wondered out loud.

He needed a weapon – he decided to search the barracks, which was lined with lockers. He went through several empty lockers and footlockers, and even a desk, finding nothing. He noticed a terminal, but it only had a holotape with some game loaded into it. So, the barracks was a bust. He headed out the door and up a few steps and saw another room ahead. In it, a semi-circular desk.

He gagged when he approached the desk: on the floor was a skeleton occupying an otherwise empty lab coat. It was the doctor who had loaded them into their pods. So it was true. Everyone was dead. "Fuck this…" he said, and stepped over the body to the desk, where he saw a 10mm pistol. That was really lucky. He took the pistol and a box with a few rounds in it which was sitting next to it. Whoever it belonged to clearly wasn't here to argue, and he loaded the gun and cocked it with practiced familiarity.

It was then that he decided to examine the terminal on the desk. Apparently, this had belonged to the Overseer of the vault, which was precisely what he needed. Browsing the logs on it, he found a prompt which read [OPEN EVACUATION TUNNEL]. Even though he wasn't exactly familiar with the setup of the vault, this was clearly what he wanted, and he entered the command. There was a blaring of an alarm, and a door opposite him slid open. Fled the room, anxious to get out of this tomb.

Shit, he needed a smoke…

Down the corridor, which curved to the left, he saw a group of three roaches. This wasn't worth wasting ammo on, as unpleasant as it was to deal with them. He sprinted up to them; one of them crawled away down into an exposed pipe. The others he dealt with quickly the same way as he had before. He continued down the hall. Finally, he came to the entryway of the vault.

It was surreal. For him, this place had been clean, lit, and full of people mere minutes ago. Everything was quiet now, cold and dark. He saw another skeleton at a console ahead of him, a testament to how much time had passed. There was the hum of machinery in the background, but nothing else. As he approached the console, he saw another roach, which he ended with a crunch under his heel. He examined the console before him.

It required some kind of wired input to activate the release button. "Shit…" he muttered and cast a glance around him anxiously. There was nothing, except on the wrist of the skeleton was a pip-boy. Crouching to examine it, he saw a cord input on the back of it. As reluctant as he was to steal from a corpse, he needed the pip-boy more than he did. He slid it off the wrist of the corpse and onto his own; it was surprisingly heavy. It consisted of a brown wristband, about five inches wide, which fit over his forearm, onto which was attached a small personal computer. He dusted the screen off and switched on the power, and saw the vault-tec icon come to life in green on the screen. He then unplugged the the cord from the back of the pip-boy and connected it to the terminal. A light switched on above it, indicating that the release was primed, and he hit the button to activate the elevator. There was the thud and hum of machinery springing to life, and the grate in front of the elevator sprung open.

He took a look back – he decided he couldn't leave Nate here. He didn't want this Vault to be his husband's tomb, and he stumbled back through the maze of twisting metal corridors back to the pods. Choking back tears as he saw Nate slumped over in the pod, he slid his arm under Nate's and lifted him. Before, Nate had seemed so small. Only the other day, Archer had picked him up amid his protests and tossed him onto the couch. How had he been so light then, and now he was so heavy. Archer made his way back to the entrance with difficulty. Despite his best efforts, tears were falling down his face again. With his free arm he wiped them away and carried Nate down the metal steps to the elevator. Once in place, the grate slid over the entrance again and the elevator sputtered up.

"Thank you for choosing Vault-Tec!" the robotic voice said, cheerfully. Given the circumstances, it was enough to bring the anger springing back through Archer's veins.

"Fuck you!" He yelled back at the Vault, though there was nobody to hear him.


	3. Entry 3

The landscape that greeted Archer as the Vault elevator lurched to a stop was utterly devastated. The entrance to the Vault was situated at the top of a hill that overlooked his neighborhood – he could have seen his home from here, if he looked. Instead, he had stopped in his tracks to examine the expanse of dead, almost uniform greys and browns which dominated the once-vibrantly colored landscape of his world.

There existed in his view not one living tree, not one green plant – the husks of those trunks which had not yet fallen stood as the bare bones of a dead world. The creek which crossed under the hiking path still flowed but there were no grasses on its banks; only scattered lichens. Archer stepped forward so that he could get a better view of his home. The buildings, like the landscape, were ravaged, by time or chaos, or both. While several were collapsed entirely, the houses which still stood – generously speaking – had incomplete or missing roofs, rotted though walls and the once manicured lawns and gardens were overgrown and battered.

Archer sat on the edge of the concrete platform for awhile, processing what had happened. For him, it was a mere thirty minutes or so since this landscape had been your model suburban landscape. He swore under his breath – perhaps to break the pervasive silence of his surroundings – and looked to the ground beneath him.

Nate was gone; his body, which lay on the ground next to Archer, was already stiff. Archer forced himself to confront the reality of what happened and yet he could hardly comprehend, let alone adjust, to that knowledge. Nate was the love of his life, the father of his son, and they had only just started their life together. Now, it was up to him to bury him.

There was a tool shed nearby, left over from the construction, and within Archer found what he needed. He worked robotically, not even thinking, as he selected a relatively empty patch of ground nearby and began to dig. No matter his situation, or the urgency with which he needed to leave this place and find out what exactly was going on, it was his duty to do this. Nobody else, it seemed, possibly could.

While he dug, he began to wonder for the first time how long he had been frozen; even through the trauma of the past hour, he had realized what those pods were for. They had been tricked into going on ice. The only question, then, was for how long. The corpses on the ground were skeletons – completely bare to the bone. It was unclear whether they had decomposed that way or whether they had been food for those monstrous bugs. The landscape was dead, and that suggested that enough time had passed for the ambient radiation of a nuclear blast to kill all the vegetation in the area. But still, that didn't provide an answer. Glad for something to think about instead of his morbid task, he racked his brain for some clue that might provide a more finite answer. He found none.

Before him stretched a rectangular hole: six feet long, more or less, by as deep as he could dig it. Once again, tears came to his eyes as he scooped up Nate's body in his arms and stared at his dead husband, memorizing every detail for the last time – he would never again see those delicate featured peppered with freckles, now marred by a garish red hole which had crusted over with dried blood. He tried his best to wipe the blood from Nate's forehead without much success. Archer caressed Nate's golden hair for the last time after what seemed like an eternity of choking back his emotions. He lowered the body into the ground.

Standing straight, he said simply: "Nate… I love you. I will always love you. I promise you, I will find Shaun, and make whoever did this pay." The air, hot and humid, sat heavily upon his shoulders and the silence was oppressive. He took up the spade again and filled in the makeshift grave.

Casting about for something to mark the grave with, the most suitable thing Archer found was a chunk of limestone among the debris from the construction. With considerable difficulty, he shifted the stone to the head of the grave in short rolls and awkward wobbling steps. Once this was done, it was time to go.

During this time, one idea had come to Archer's mind: in his house, there had been a safe wherein was contained his old marine's gear. With any luck, it was still there, and so he decided that this was his first destination. After that, he had to secure some food and water. Who knew what was even safe to eat or to drink here.

He took the old hiking path down to Sanctuary Hills. While several homes were merely husks or, worse, had collapsed entirely, his hopes were raised when he noticed that there were several of the suburban houses that had not fallen to quite the same degree of disrepair that the others had. Turning the corner out from the path, he saw that his home was among them. Still, the difference was shocking.

The door had fallen long ago; perhaps it had happened by force or maybe the damage to the frame had happened over time. There were a few holes in the walls and ceiling, but on the whole the structure remained intact. As he approached, he thought he heard the sound of hover-jets, but he dismissed it until he saw, to his disbelief, a Mister Handy emerge from the home.

In practically the same instance, the bot noticed Archer as well. Turning to face him, the robot cried in a familiarly dramatic manner:

"As I live and breathe…" For a stunned moment, Archer didn't recognize him, but then realized: Codsworth had somehow survived! "It's… It's really you!

"Codsworth! You're still here!" Archer said, stepping forward to meet the dented old robot. "What happened? To everything?"

"The world?" Codsworth said, confused. "Well, aside from our geraniums still being the envy of everyone in Sanctuary Hills, I'm afraid everything has been dreadfully dull around here."

Archer frowned in confusion; was Codsworth unaware of what had happened? Codsworth continued:

"Everything will be so much more exciting with you and the mister back! Where is your better half, by the way?" Codsworth enquired, his robotic eyes casting around curiously.

Archer was silent for a moment. "Nate's… Nate is gone." He said in a morose tone. "They killed him."

"Sir, these things you're saying. These… terrible things. I believe you are in need of a distraction. Yes! Something to calm you from this dire mood." Codsworth said in a frantic tone. "It's been ages since we've had a proper family activity. Perhaps checkers? Or charades… Shaun does so love that one. Is the lad… with you?"

Once again, the words made Archer wince. He was tempted to shut Codsworth up for that comment, and his attitude, but he had to remind himself of what he needed: he needed to know what his situation was. And besides, the bot had no way of knowing what he was saying.

"He's gone too…" Archer looked down to the ground and the anger boiled up, screwing his expression to a fierce grimace. "Goddamnit! The people who killed Nate, they took Shaun! They stole my son!" He lashed out at the wall to his left, punching through the weakened drywall easily. Swearing and bracing himself against the wall, he tore his fist from the hole.

Codsworth hardly seemed to notice. "It's worse than I thought," he mused with a concerned tone. "You appear to be suffering from hunger-induced paranoia. Not eating properly for two hundred years will do that, I'm afraid."

Archer's attention snapped back Codsworth. Had he said two hundred years? That had to be wrong. There was no way he had been frozen for so long.

"What?" he snapped in irritation. "Two hundred years? What? Are you saying-"

"A bit over two hundred and ten, actually, sir, give or take a few for the Earth's rotation and a few minor dings to the ol' chronometer! That means you're two centuries late for dinner!" this with a chuckle; he continued. "Perhaps I can whip you up a snack?"

Archer was through being irritated with the dented robot; clearly, his logic core wasn't quite suited to understanding what had happened. But Archer believed what he was saying. He had lost two hundred years. He was in a whole new era of history. His stomach churned nervously at the thought.

"Sure…" he replied absentmindedly. Humming, Codsworth drifted into the ruins of the house. This reminded him of what he had been doing. "Oh Codsworth?" he called. "Is my safe still intact?" as he asked, he stepped into the ruin and headed straight for his and Nate's old bedroom.

"Yes sir, I believe so!" Codsworth announced cheerfully. This was a relief.

Archer found the safe in his old closet, which was now more or less fully exposed as large sections of the closet wall had rotted through and fallen away. He rooted around under his old mattress – which was an unpleasant task, given that it was two centuries old – and retrieved it. He was very lucky that Codsworth had been here guarding the house all this time. Otherwise, all of his old things might have been taken by now. After wiping his hand on the side of his Vault suit, he inserted the key into the lock and opened the safe.

Inside, he found a pair of black denim pants with ballistic inserts, leather shin- and arm-guards, and his old assault rifle with a few boxes of rounds. There was no shirt, but he could find one later – anything was better than this stupid, bright-blue jumpsuit. He stripped out of the onesie and slipped on the pants after checking to make sure the inserts were still intact; they were fine. All of his things were in more or less excellent condition, since they had been protected from the temperature and humidity was well as the terrifyingly large bugs within the safe. He belted the pistol to his pants and strapped on the leather guards, then slung the rifle over his shoulder.

He was actually a little relieved to not be wearing a shirt; the heat and humidity were terrible. Absentmindedly, he wondered if the heat were a side-effect of the years of radiation. It had never been this hot here before.

As he was finishing securing his gear, Codsworth floated into the room with a tray of Fancy-Lads snack cakes and, upon seeing them, Archer was immediately seized by the hunger he had been too distracted to noticed. Thanking Codsworth and taking the tray from him, he wolfed down an entire cake before it occurred to him – weren't these two hundred years old?

He spat out a mouthful of crumbs and said, "Codsworth! These have to be spoiled, right?" They hadn't tasted spoiled, but one never knows.

"Oh no, sir, these won't expire for another fifty years!" Codsworth said. "I would never feed you spoiled food, sir!" He sounded somewhat offened.

 _Huh,_ Archer thought. _The magic of preservatives._

With the green light from Codsworth, he greedily ate the entire rest of the tray of snack cakes.

Though his chewing, he noticed that Codsworth was still hovering nearby, staring. "Codsworth, are you alright?" he asked. "You're acting strangely."

There was a pause; the robot looked down nervously. "I… I…" he began with a quaver in his voice, then broke down. "Oh, sir, it's been just horrible! Two centuries with no one to talk to, nobody to serve!" If he had been a person, he sounded as if he absolutely would have broken into tears. "I spent the first ten years trying to keep the floors waxed, but nothing gets out nuclear fallout from vinyl wood! Nothing!" His robotic arms waved about in frustration. "And don't get me started on the futility of dusting a collapsed house! And the car! How does one polish rust?" he asked desperately.

"I'm here now," Archer said in a soothing tone. "You gotta stay with me now, Codsworth. Please, I need you to focus." The bot nodded. "What do you know about what happened?"

"I'm afraid I don't know anything, sir," Codsworth said. "The bombs came, and you all left in such a hurry. I thought for certain that you and your family were… dead." There was silence for a few moments. Neither wanted to admit that Nate was gone, again.

"I did find this holotape," Codsworth continued. "I believe the mister was going to give it to you. As a surprise. But then, you know, everything happened…" He retrieved a holotape cassette from a drive in his frame and handed it to Archer, who took it gratefully.

"Thank you, Codsworth." He said.

"Of course, sir." Codsworth replied. "Now, enough feeling sorry for myself. Shall we search the neighborhood? The mister and young Shaun may turn up yet." Archer realized with a sinking feeling that Codsworth still hadn't understood the reality of what had happened to them.

"Codsworth, they aren't here." He said. "But do you know where I might find help?"

"I believe there might be people in Concord," Codsworth answered. "But there are some ruffians around the area; shall I accompany you in your search for young Shaun?"

"No, Codsworth, I need you to keep watch here. I need somewhere to fall back to if I need to." Archer replied. Codsworth was visibly disappointed, and so he added, "I'm sure I'll be back soon. Don't worry." He then turned to make his way towards Concord.


	4. Entry 4

Archer was familiar with Concord; a small town only a few minutes' drive from Sanctuary Hills. Luckily, it wasn't too far of a walk, and after passing over the wooden bridge out of Sanctuary, he already felt that he was starting to take some measure of control over his situation. Fifteen minutes later, on the outskirts of Concord, he passed a Red Rocket Truck Stop, one of the many that dotted the pre-war landscape. It was mostly intact, surprisingly, and that made Archer somewhat wary. He had already been traveling with his hand on the gun in its holster, but now he drew it and approached the gas station warily.

It seemed that there wasn't much cause for worry. The stop seemed deserted, and he stepped inside to investigate, and salvage any supplies he could.

The interior of the stop was very barren, with only the counter with its cash register remaining for furniture, and the office was also largely empty with the exception of a desk with a dusty old terminal sitting on it; the only thing of particular interest was a safe.

"If only I had a few bobby pins…" Archer muttered and shuffled through the desk drawer – no luck. It probably wasn't much of a loss, anyway. He stepped over to the cash register and retrieved all the bills, which he noted with surprise were still there, and shoved them into his back pocket. It was at this moment that he heard barking.

Immediately alarmed, he redrew his pistol and watched through the broad windows looking out on the motor pool as what appeared to be a german shepherd approached from the far side of the station. There didn't appear to be anyone with it. It caught his scent and perked up, staring at the building and setting off at a trot towards the door. Once inside, it stopped to sniff the air and then noticed him standing behind the counter. From its body language, Archer judged it to be non-hostile, surprisingly. He lowered the gun and approached the dog cautiously.

"Hey there buddy," he allowed the dog to close the gap between them and sniff his hand. Once it had done so, he patted him between the ears gently. "You've got no collar," he said as he knelt down beside him. "I wonder if you have anyone?"

The dog barked in what sounded like an affirmative, wagging his tail and panting.

"You sure are a cheerful dog," Archer said with a chuckle. "Do you want to come with me?" In response, the dog bounced to his feet and set his tail to wagging even harder. "You sure are a cutie," he said and rubbed the dog's chest. "What am I going to call you?"

He received no suggestions from his new friend.

"How about… Dogmeat?" Archer suggested – he had always had a dark sense of humor and recent events seemed to accentuate that. Dogmeat seemed thrilled with the choice.

With suddent interest, Dogmeat's ears perked and he looked towards the exterior of the station. He set his nose to the ground and went to investigate, Archer following with one hand to his pistol. He could have sworn he heard a low, rumbling noise, but he couldn't discern the source. Dogmeat was sniffing around the exposed earth where the concrete had cracked in the motor pool, and his curiosity was rewarded a moment later.

In a flurry of scattered dirt, Archer saw some sort of huge, pink rodents emerge from an underground tunnel. They were larger than any mole he had ever seen – perhaps as large as a capybara. Dogmeat chomped down on the neck of the first to arrive and tossed it aside, neck snapped instantaneously. Archer drew his 10mm and double-tapped one which had made a dash towards him.

The mound of pink flesh gurgled and collapsed; at the sound of gunfire, the rest of the rodents turned and fled into their tunnel, but not before Dogmeat caught one more in his vice-like jaws. With a twist, the hound snapped its neck and flung it aside.

Archer squatted to the ground, arms resting on his knees, and let out a deep breath he hadn't known he was holding. He was glad that his training was kicking in, the hours of drills ensuring that accuracy was second-nature to him.

To him, it had only been a few months since his most recent tour of duty. For the world, it had been more than two centuries.

Examining the creature before him, it looked like a hairless mole which had grown huge and grotesque. He thought, absentmindedly, that moles ate insects – maybe these had grown and adapted to their now-disgustingly-large prey.

Two minutes or so later, Archer stood. It was time to head out, but he decided to mark the location of the gas station on his pip-boy. In his time in the military, it had been routine for them to set up safehouses when in enemy territory; he figured it made sense to do the same here, and so he decided to keep track of potential locations.

The road which lead south-east towards Concord curved around a bend and down the hill upon which the Red Rocket was situated; Concord itself was within view, only a ten-minute walk away. He set off down the hill, and made the rest of the journey to the town's edge without incident.

Crossing through a dilapidated playground towards the cluster of buildings, he kept his gun at the ready. As he drew closer, he could hear gunfire, faintly. It was too far at the moment to tell where exactly the shooting was happening.

He wasn't certain where he was going; he knew of Concord, but he had never spent much time here. There had been a few shops on Main Street, but not much else. He figured that if people lived here, they were likely in that area, and so he made his way towards the center of the town, and traveled for perhaps fifteen minutes unhindered. However, it became increasingly clear that he was getting closer to the shooting, and so he remained on alert.

Coming up on Main Street, he crouched low and hugged the side of an abandoned business as he appraised the situation before him. Approximately one hundred yards ahead of him there was a group of people in makeshift, shoddy clothes and armor who were attacking the town hall. Several of them were crouched behind sandbags and were engaged in a firefight with a man on a balcony above the street; he wore a colonial-sort of coat and was firing an energy-based weapon.

"The loot on you'd better be worth it!" Archer heard the call from one of the men crouched behind a sandbag.

 _So that's what's going on. Damnit. Raiders._ Archer supposed it made sense that, in a post-nuclear-fallout scenario, there would be raiders.

His instincts told him to get far away from the conflict, but he needed information from whoever was in the city hall. And so it became his obligation to help them.

Moving from cover, he double-timed it about twenty yards ahead and dropped behind an abandoned car. He readied his pistol and looked out from the side of the car. Instinctively, efficiently, he identified the raider nearest him and unloaded two rounds into it. Without pause, he did the same for the two others beside it before they managed to react.

The group of raiders stopped and looked back at the three downed attackers; in their confusion the man on the balcony took out one more. Reacting to this, several dropped back into cover, and three of them began to sprint towards Archer's position.

 _I'm in luck; they're amateurs,_ he thought with vague amusement. Calmly, he shot the nearest two: one in the head, the other in the shoulder and then the chest. The third was nearing him now, with a lead pipe at the ready. Archer stood up and braced himself, and as the raider closed in on him he ducked low, grabbing the man about the midsection with his shoulder and left arm and stopping the arm with the pipe with the other. He forced the man to the ground and wrenched the pipe from his hand and struck him across the face three, maybe four times; he wasn't counting. The raider's body went limp and Archer got up, holding the pipe.

Just to be certain, he whipped the pipe into the raider's head one more time, feeling he skull cave with a crunch.

Looking up from the corpse, he saw that there was left only one raider, who was fully distracted by the man on the balcony. Like an idiot, he was standing in the open and pointing an improvised pistol almost directly in the air; Archer drew his pistol and in one smooth motion fired two rounds into the man's chest.

He looked down again at the corpse at his feet, but then recoiled in disgust. The man – or woman, it was really impossible to tell – was hideously disfigured, even without its injuries. The face was marred by pockmarks and what looked like either burn wounds or scabbed sores; the nose was sunken into the face, the cartilage gone, and the other distinguishing features such as the brows and lips were missing.

"Hey, you there! I don't know who you are, but you've got great timing! We need help here!" Archer looked away from the marred corpse towards the figure on the balcony, who was gesturing broadly towards him to get his attention.

"Are there more of them?!" Archer called and moved towards the building.

"Yeah! And I have civilians in here! You can take that laser musket – he doesn't need it anymore," with this, the man indicated a corpse at the entry to the building. "But hurry!" he added, and then retreated into the city hall.

Archer jogged over to the door, and examined the corpse he'd indicated: another man in a colonial-era outfit.

 _Are they going for a fucking theme here?_

He didn't need the musket. To be honest, he wouldn't know how to operate a laser musket. He thought the idea was wildly stupid. Bringing his attention to the task at hand, however, he pushed open the door and stepped into the city hall.

His immediate impression was that, if the building looked whole from the outside, the interior was anything but. The majority of the second floor had collapsed, created heaps of debris that blocked all but a side hallway out of the foyer, and it had formed an exposed bridge between the two halves of the second floor; there were two raiders ducked behind cover on the bridge, facing away from him. They hadn't noticed him entering, and so he took advantage of that by taking them out from behind in quick succession.

Not wasting any time, he ducked into the corridor on his right, which led into a display room with several revolution-era figures posed with antique muskets. This wasn't a city hall then, probably, but a museum.

 _This must be where they got their ridiculous costumes._

He continued through the room and another hallway to his left. Hopefully, it would lead around the mound of debris in the entry. He came upon two raiders and, before they could react, dropped the first one and then unloaded two rounds into the second.

This one, however, was wearing some sort of improvised metal armor, and wasn't really wounded by the gunshots. Wielding a club, he advanced toward Archer. Archer holstered his gun and sidestepped as his attacker lunged with the gun, overextending, and he brought his elbow into the small of its back; it crumpled to the ground, forced off balance, and Archer planted his foot on its back. Redrawing his pistol, he fired one round into the back of the man's head.

He heard gunfire erupt on the floor above him; he had to hurry. He took the club off the corpse and holstered his pistol, and sprinted down the corridor and out into the other half of the foyer; one section of the collapsed floor had formed a ramp onto the second floor. Hopefully, it was clear. Throwing caution aside he bounded up the ramp and around the corner towards the bridge across the second floor.

There was still one floor to go – the firefight was happening there. The midsection of the third floor was completely gone, but the railing around it was intact. Archer sprinted across the bridge and into a corridor off the second floor. There he found the staircase to the third floor and, with more caution, moved up the steps.

As he came up on the third floor into another corridor which flanked the central room, he saw a door open ahead of him. He acted on instinct; closing the distance as quickly as he could with the club in hand, he saw a raider emerging with a pipe pistol and whipped the club into their hand. The pistol went flying and the raider cried out in pain. In another instant, Archer brought the club back around into their face; they collapsed unconscious. Archer dropped the club and drew his pistol, firing one shot into the raider's back, and rounded the corner through the door.

There was only one raider left between him and the defending civilians, in worn combat armor and wielding a pipe rifle. Archer fired three times; two hit the armor and one hit the raider's arm. He ducked under cover as the raider let out a volley of rounds, but the pipe rifle wasn't very powerful and he was willing to bet it had a small magazine.

The firing stopped after only six or so shots and he heard the metallic click of a magazine ejecting. Seizing his opportunity he ducked out from behind cover and closed the few meters between him and his attacker; Archer brought his heel up into the crouched man's nose with a satisfying thud, and as the man slumped over backwards Archer fired one round into his forehead.

Everything was silent for a minute; Archer bent over, hands on his knees, and caught his breath. He knelt down by the corpse and went through its pack, grabbing the ammo he had and dropping it into his ammo pouch. He heard the door open slowly and stepped back, arms up.

"Hey, I'm a good guy!" he announced hastily to the man who had been on the balcony. He could see him in more detail now – he wore a faded khaki duster with a colonial hat. He had dark skin, thick stubble and cropped hair. From his posture and performance in that fight, Archer suspected he had a little more experience than the raiders.

"Man, you have got excellent timing," he said. "Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen." He lowered the laser musket and gestured for Archer to head into the room.

"Archer," he replied. "Nice to meet you, I suppose." A thought struck him. "Minutement?" he asked dubiously. "So now I'm traveling backward in time?" He stepped into the room where Preston's group was holed up.

"To protect the people at a minutes' notice," Preston answered with a sigh; his shoulders slumped somewhat. "That was the idea. It's why I signed on. But… things fell apart. It looks like I'm the only Minuteman left standing."

"I take it you're protecting these people," Archer replied with a look around the room. They were a pretty sorry bunch. "Who are they?"

"Just folks looking for a good home. Been with 'em since Quincy. Lexington looked good for awhile, but the ghouls drove us out. There used to be twenty of us – yesterday there were eight, and now we're just five total. Me, the Juns, that's Mama Murphy over there, and that's Sturges at the computer." He gestured to the assembled group as he identified them: the Juns were a couple, a cowering man with short black hair and an irritable-looking woman standing near him; Mama Murphy was an elderly lady sitting on a nearby recliner in a worn denim jacket and wearing wraps under her clothing for warmth. Sturges was a tall, muscular man in overalls and a plain tee, with thick brown hair and the beginnings of mutton chops going down his jaw. All of them looked worn out. Sturges gave him a nod; Archer nodded back.

"I – the world has changed so much. You mentioned ghouls? What are those?" Archer asked.

"You've never seen a ghoul? Huh. They're people, they've got bad radiation sickness that messes up their skin. Ugly as hell, but they don't age, apparently. Some of them go mad from the radiation. We call those ferals."

"I… I think one of those raiders was a ghoul. Fuck," Archer let out a long sigh and said "Shit's fucked up."

"You're tellin' me. Where'd you learn to fight like that?"

"I, uh…" Archer wasn't certain how to respond. How do you just tell someone that you were stuck in a cryogenic pod for the last couple of centuries? "I've had training. Let's leave it at that for now."

"Alright," Preston shrugged. "Anyway, we thought Concord would be alright to settle, but the raiders proved us wrong. Though we had an idea about that."

"Let's hear it," Archer preferred to get to the point quickly; he had been drilled to the point of constant efficiency.

"Sturges? You tell 'im," Preston called over his shoulder. Sturges swiveled around in the creaky old chair.

"There's a crashed vertibird on the roof. Pre-War. You might've seen it," he said. "Well, looks like one of its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody. We're talkin' a full set of cherry T-45 Power Armor. Military Issue."

Archer let out a low, appreciative whistle. "I like it," he said.

With a chuckle, Sturges replied, "Yeah, I thought you might. Protection, with an added bonus. You get into that suit, you can rip the minigun right off the vertibird. Get that, and the raiders get an express ticket to Hell. You dig?"

"Fuck yeah, I dig," Archer replied with a grin.

"Only one hitch," Sturges continued. "The suit's outta juice – no fusion core. Probably been dead a hundred years. Luckily for us, there's a fusion core in the cellar; locked up, though."

Alright; I'll get it," Archer said. He didn't need any more info, and they were wasting time.

He headed back down to the first floor the way he came, stopping to grab ammo off the corpses as he went. In the foyer, a section of the floor had collapsed under the weight of the debris and exposed the cellar. There was a metal cage housing the museum's old fusion generator – a standard Mass Fusion model. Archer had worked on these before. The powered door to the cage was controlled by a monitor hanging off the side of it.

Luckily, since the generator was untouched, the monitor still had power. Archer booted it up, but it was password-protected.

Opening up the command prompt, he issued a low-level reset to bypass the login. Once it had rebooted, he prompted it to open the door, which swung open following a metallic click. Archer stepped inside and shut down the generator, pulling the pre-war fusion core out of its slot. It was encased in a cylindrical lead tube, probably eight inches or so in length and three inches in diameter. He stuck the core into his pack and moved back up the labyrinth of collapsed flooring and side corridors to Preston and his refugees.

"That was quick," Preston noted with an appreciative grin.

"I used to work on these things back in the day," Archer noted.

"Looks like you're exactly what we needed," Preston's voice had an ironic tone to it.

"Head out the door opposite you," Sturges interjected. "The stairs are off to the right. Will lead you right up to the bird."

With a grin and a nod, Archer did as was instructed; he was admittedly somewhat excited about getting to use power armor. He had been trained to use them, but had never had the occasion to actually get one in action.

As it turned out, the 'roof' was in fact a completely exposed fourth floor – the roof had caved in under the weight of the vertibird. The power armor stood next to it, unoccupied – whoever had left it had probably been on the crew of the vertibird.

In the back of the huge armored frame was a hatch which, when opened, exposed the slot for the fusion core as well as opened up the back of the suit. Archer slid the core into its slot and, after a few seconds, the suit sprung to life: the backs of the arms, legs, and helmet opened up alongside the torso, and Archer stepped up into it. Sensing him, the suit then shut itself with a hydraulic hiss, then a series of clicks as the latches shut. He checked his power readout – the core was about seventy per cent depleted already. Later, if he could find the equipment, he would have to cycle through the dirty nuclear material and recharge it. For now, thirty per cent would work just fine. He stepped up to the side of the vertibird and, grasping the handles on the minigun turret, ripped it off of its mount.

 _Let's do this,_ he thought.


	5. Entry 5

There were two raiders on the rooftop opposite him; spinning up the minigun, he released a series of quick bursts that tore through the two easily.

Perhaps the best feature of Power Armor was the shock-absorbing hydraulic legs, which enabled one to fall long distances without any injuries to their legs. The falling itself took some getting used to, but as a bona-fide adrenaline junkie, Archer loved it. After dispatching the first two raiders he took a running start and leapt from the rooftop of the museum, landing with a heavy thud and kicking up a cloud of dust. Just ahead, he saw the second round of raiders approaching.

Apparently not being any better trained, they were mostly just making a beeline directly down Main Street. He spun up the minigun again and stepped out from cover, and just as the huge figure in power armor, he released a torrent of five-millimeter rounds through the leading few raiders. Several of them managed to duck into cover but, without needing to take cover himself, he advanced, firing short bursts into their cover and flushing them out. Once he had advanced perhaps fifteen yards, however, he saw something that stopped him in his tracks.

There was the sound of thudding on concrete, and buckling steel, followed immediately by some _thing_ erupting from the pavement about sixty yards down the street. It was huge, reptilian, and stood at least as tall as the Power Armor, maybe taller. It grabbed a raider which had fallen to the ground on its right and, with apparent ease, ripped three huge claws down the length of his abdomen and then tossed the vivisected ragdoll aside.

Without wasting a moment, Archer redirected his fire at the beast, unloading a storm of bullets at the monster with seemingly little effect. It reared up, and roared into the irradiated sky and then, on all fours now, rushed down the street with surprising agility.

Archer backed up towards the museum, all the while maintaining fire on the creature. One raider, stupidly fearless, charged the beast with a shotgun and was tossed against a building with such force that his neck visibly snapped on impact. The creature maintained its course towards Archer, who could tell that the bullets were not having much effect on its scaly hide.

He set aside the minigun and hurriedly moved to a nearby building, the wall of which had several exposed beams. He grasped one and, straining the hydraulics on the power armor, ripped it from the wall. The creature was closing in, approximately twenty yards away. Moving into position facing the monster reptile head-on, he planted himself firmly and primed the suit hydraulics.

 _Closer, closer…_ Archer's entire system was flooded with adrenaline. Time stood still for a moment as the beast drew so near that he could make out the huge, menacing fangs in its maw. It crouched, mid-stride, and leapt for him.

 _NOW_

Unleashing the suit hydraulics, Archer drove forward with the makeshift pike. His heart stopped for a moment and the hulking reptile struggled for a moment, clawing at the power armor's limbs, and then slumped over heavily. Archer dropped the pike, the creature landing with a heavy thud; the splintered beam protruding through its chest. In the periphery of his awareness, he heard triumphant cries from the balcony above him.

His limbs were trembling, but Archer used the dregs of his adrenaline to retrieve his minigun and turn back to the raider-infested Main Street. Preston and Sturges, from the balcony, had picked off two raiders that tried to charge him. He advanced once more down the street, spinning up the gun, picking off the handful of raiders that were trying to retreat into cover.

Halfway down the street, he felt the impact of a shotgun round into the side of the armor. Immediately swinging about he saw a raider in makeshift adorned with a variety of spikes and a piping cage protecting his head; the man leapt towards him with a shout and closed the distance before Archer could spin up the gun, pumping another round into the suit's abdomen. An alert flashed before him in the visor.

Archer grabbed the cage helmet with one hydraulic arm and dragged him to the side towards one of the buildings, then deftly smashed it into a brick wall. The piping snapped and the man collapsed. He tried to shift backwards away from Archer, but Archer pinned him with one heavy mechanical leg and, rearing the hydraulics in the suit, brought his fist down into the raider's exposed face. The raider's skull caved like papier mâché.

Exhausted, Archer turned back to the museum. A damage report on the suit's visor read damage to the shielding in the torso, left and right legs, and right arm of suit; stress to all of the hydraulic systems, and overloaded circuits in the right arm. He dragged the mess of a suit back to the museum and then exited, stepping out of the back panel drenched in sweat.

The suit had taken an impressive amount of damage. What chilled him to the bone, however, were the deep scored marks along the sides of the suit: even in its dying throes, that monster had had the strength to cut through solid steel plating with relative ease.

"Why is everything here huge and terrifying?" Archer wondered aloud as he stepped into the lobby of the museum. He was greeted by applause from several of the refugees as well as Preston Garvey, who were assembled in the entry. They looked packed up and ready to move out.

"That was… a pretty amazing display," Preston said as he approached them. "I'm just glad you're on our side."

Archer grimaced. "I don't know you well enough to say that, yet. I'm on my own side. But I'm glad to help."

"Alright, I get it," Preston said, frowning. "We're gonna be fine, thanks to you. Mama Murphy's got an idea for somewhere nearby we can settle." He continued, rooting around in his jacket pockets. "Listen, something you should know about the Minutemen is that we help out our friends. So here's this. For everything you've done." He pulled out a bag and placed it in Archer's palm.

Opening up the bag, Archer's face took on a puzzled expression. "You're giving me… bottlecaps? Nuka-Cola bottlecaps?" He tilted his head quizzically.

"uh… yeah." Preston said. "You know, for payment."

"I don't follow," Archer said and tied the bag back. "Do you not have money?"

"You really aren't from around here, are you?" Preston said with an amused grin. "Pre-war currency isn't worth much anymore. Most people use bottlecaps for trading; more durable than bills and they're everywhere."

"Huh…" Archer said with a nod. "Gotcha. Thanks." Then, after a moment, he added, "What was that thing, by the way? That fuckin huge lizard?"

"That, my friend," Preston said with a grin, "Is a deathclaw. And I have never seen anyone tangle with a deathclaw and live to tell the tale. That was awesome, man."

"That…" Archer said, "Is an extremely accurate name." He let out a breath. "Fuck that thing. I hope those aren't everywhere."

"Man, where are you from, you don't know what ghouls and caps are?" Preston asked.

"That's," Archer hesitated. "A lot to get into right now. What's your next step?"

With a sigh, Preston replied, "Mama Murphy's had a vision of a place called Sanctuary. We're gonna head there and try to settle it. Rebuild the Minutemen. You're welcome to come with, if you want."

"I… yeah. I think I'm headed back there anyway." Archer shrugged. Preston looked confused, or maybe intrigued, but didn't answer. "What do we do now?"

Suddenly, Mama Murphy interjected; she had been seated on the ground a few feet away, listening to the conversation. "You've gotta stay strong, kid. Like you been. Cause there's more to your destiny," she was peering intently into his face; her eyes had an almost glazed aspect, as if she were looking not at him, but through him. "I've seen it. And I know your pain."

Archer scoffed. "The fuck do you know about me?"

"You're a man out of time… Out of hope. But all's not lost. I can feel…" She sounded strained, and she peered into an unknown middle distance. "I can feel your son's energy. He's alive." This last phrase was said in a half-whisper, as if she were running out of air.

Archer squatted down next to her, and in an animated tone demanded: "Where is my son? Where is Shaun?" There was a tinge of desperation to his voice.

"I wish I knew kid, I really do." She said defensively. "It's not like I can see him. I can just… feel his life force. He's out there. But even I don't need the Sight to tell you where to start lookin'. The great, green jewel of the Commonwealth. Diamond City."

Archer's head fell in disappointment. "I… is that all?"

"Look, kid, I'm tired. I need to rest. Maybe you bring me some chems later, the Sight will paint a clearer picture."

Shaking his head, Archer retorted, "Of course. Chems. You don't know shit, you're just a junkie." He stood, angrily, and turned to leave. "I'm going back to sanctuary," he said to Preston and then stormed out.

Once outside, he heard Dogmeat barking and then a moment later saw the dog cheerfully run up to him.

"Hey, boy, glad you're safe. Let's head out." Archer kept his pistol at the ready as he moved out the way he had come, tired and more than a little pissed off. It was evening now, and night was approaching quickly. Despite his limbs feeling heavy and fatigued, Archer decided to jog back to Sanctuary; he didn't want to know what came out at night in this wasteland.

The return trip went by uneventfully; Archer jogged back up the hill towards Sanctuary with much less incident than on the trip down, and made relatively good time. Before he knew it, in just under fifteen minutes, he had arrived at the rickety wooden bridge which led across the stream and into Sanctuary Hills. He jogged all the way to his doorstep, and stumbled in the door wearily as Codsworth floated into the living room from the back of the house.

"Oh, sir, you've returned! And with a pooch!" Codsworth greeted him cheerfully. Then, after a pause: "Sir, I notice young Shaun is not with you. How did your search fare?"

Archer didn't answer for a moment; first, he collapsed onto the dusty remains of his sofa. Kicking off his boots, he briefly recounted what had happened in Concord.

"My word, but aren't you quite the hero, sir!" The old bot crooned. "And soon we shall have company! I shall have to tidy up a bit, but you needn't concern yourself, sir… Now, where is this Diamond City of which this, what is it, Mama Murphy spoke?"

Archer was developing a headache; he pressed on the bridge of his nose tiredly. "I don't know, Codsworth, but I need you to keep watch tonight. I'm exhausted. I'm going to sleep."

"Very well, sir, and tomorrow we shall discuss our next move!" Codsworth hummed to himself as he set to some sort of busywork. Archer couldn't fathom how he could keep himself busy after two centuries, but then again, he must have found some way after all this time.

Luckily, sleep claimed him before he could reflect on the events of the day.

Archer slept fitfully, tossing and turning uncomfortably on the musty old sofa; Nate had always said it was one of his many talents that he could sleep anywhere. Yet, at the moment, his sleep was tormented. He didn't know of what specifically he dreamed, though it wasn't pleasant. He was acutely aware of his loss – he felt lost amid some void into which had fallen Nate, Shaun, and in fact his entire world in one fel strike. He awoke only a few hours later, feeling completely unrested.

Rising heavily, he stepped out of the house amid Codsworth's jumbled attempts to tell him something; he was irritable and didn't listen. He say, across the street, a campfire and alarm rose quickly in his throat before his brain caught up to him: Preston Garvey and his troupe must have set up camp across the street. He made his way groggily over to them.

"Glad you decided to join us," Preston said. Archer could tell that he was a friendly guy and, while Archer himself bristled at his attempts to make nice, Preston was unfazed.

"Yeah." Archer said stiffly and sat by the fire. He was suddenly aware that he was very cold, and his bare torso was chilled to the bone by a cold sweat which had sprung up over the course of his dreaming. Preston was staring at him; an awkward silence had hung in the air for several minutes. "It's… weird to be back." His words fell flat in the space between them.

"You keep saying weird shit like that," Preston said. "You sound like you lived here?"

"Yeah," Archer sighed. It's not like there was much point in hiding it. "Before the war."

"A man out of time…" Preston said, thinking. "That's what Mama Murphy said. You mean, like, the Great War? You don't look like those old pre-war ghouls to me."

"That's 'cause I'm not," Archer sighed. Tired, cold, and hungry, he had an acute desire to not go over the life-shattering events of the past day with this stranger. But now it had come up. "I was… in a Vault. Vault One Eleven," He gestured to the hill overlooking the neighborhood. "We were frozen. Some kind of… cryogenic pods. I thawed out yesterday."

"Shit," Preston said with an astonished look. "That's… that's rough, man. You used to live here then?"

"Yeah. Me and Nate. And our son, Shaun. He was just a baby." He was silent for a long moment; Preston was watching his face with a measured expression. "At one point, I was thawed out but still trapped. Nate was thawed, too. He had Shaun in his pod. This man was there, bald, with a scar across his face, with some people in hazmat suits. They opened Nate's pod and took Shaun, then…" Looking down into the fire, he stopped talking. He didn't know if he could finish; he hadn't had to go over this in this detail yet. He didn't know how he felt telling this to a stranger. "… they. They shot Nate." With difficulty, he finished the thought, choking back a lump in his throat.

Preston was silent for a minute. "If I were you, I'd listen to what Mama Murphy said." He spoke up finally. "It's true she uses chems – I try to talk her out of it. But her Sight depends on them," Feeling the tangible skepticism from Archer, he continued. "But it's true, what she says. The Sight has saved us a few times before."

In a world of giant roaches and lizards, immortal irradiated man-things, and two hundred year-old vault escapees, this didn't seem so bizarre.

"Alright. Diamond City. But first, I want to establish a safe house here," Archer said. "All this is useless if I get killed or leave this place defenseless. I was an engineer with the army, and Mass Fusion before that. I'll see what I can put together tomorrow."

"Alright," Preston nodded appreciatively. "Sturges can help you with that. Your old bot and I will keep up defenses – yeah, we had a chat with Codsworth when we arrived – and we'll get to work tomorrow."

Nodding silently, Archer curled up in front of the fire and fell back asleep. This time, he slept dreamlessly and through the night.


	6. Entry 6

*** Author's Note: I'm not a fan of notes, so I will try not to do this again. I only felt it worth mentioning that I'm open to critiques or comments. I also wanted to mention for those that have followed the story, thank you, and sorry for the erratic posting. School has just recommenced.

6

Two weeks or so passed in relative peace; Archer discovered that, in the post-nuclear-apocalyptic Wasteland, life was hard, but not particularly eventful. At least, not this far from the last vestiges of population. While he had felt that he should make his way towards Diamond City, whose location had been explained to him, he knew that his first priority had to be in setting up a defensible base of operations. Now that Preston and co. were on his side, this task was made much easier.

They had quickly come to rely heavily on Archer; his combination of military engineering and combat experience made him an extremely valuable ally and, while they scavenged for the parts he required, he set about building a simple water filtration system and pump, a small hydroponics bay in one of the abandoned houses and perhaps most importantly, he began to build automated turrets.

This was no simple task. His equipment was thus far limited to what he found in his neighbors' workshops as well as the abandoned Red Rocket Truck Stop, but by scavenging broken or dead robots, they were able to find the parts he required. He built four, stretching his resources as far as he could, and placed them at key points. One protected his home, which had been turned into a makeshift barracks, one guarded the entrance to the hydroponics, and two were set flanking the road into the neighborhood. As for the others, they built defense posts and began to patrol them. Codsworth and the Jungs worked in the hydroponics farming food, though it was too soon now to actually harvest anything. In summary, they rapidly deployed what amounted to a self-sustaining forward station in only seventeen days.

The final step, according to Preston, was to build and deploy a minutement radio beacon, with the goal of attracting new settlers. Archer had been resistant to this, at first, because he felt that it only endangered their position. From Preston's perspective, however, it was impossible to maintain a concealed position for long in the raider-infested wastes, and so the logical conclusion was to develop strength in numbers. And so Archer had set about constructing the recruiting beacon. This was actually relatively simple: by dismantling a simple HAM radio, a satellite dish and a holotape player, he was able to rig together a very simple setup wherein the radio and satellite relayed a message that Archer would record onto the device.

The dish and radio were mounted and ready; before he could activate it, however, he had to first record the message.

"Shouldn't you record this? I'm not actually a Minuteman," Archer asked Preston, who was helping him with the setup. Sturged was there as well, double-checking that everything was fastened to the mounting tower correctly; it was a ten-foot-tall makeshift tower made from welded strips of scrap metal, but it worked. Archer was quickly learning not to care how polished things looked.

"You've been the one pulling the most weight; I say you do it. Besides, this is practically your settlement. It wouldn't have happened without you." Then, with a chuckle: "don't tell me a badass like yourself is shy?"

"Of course not," Archer grinned. "I'm just too badass to be making radio appearances." He readied the holotape recorder. "Here goes," he sighed and hit the record button. "Ahem. Attention Commonwealth residents. Are you looking for a safe place to settle? Hone in on these coordinates; if you're willing to work hard, you can make the Commonwealth a better place." He wasn't sure how to sign off; he ended the recording.

"That works," Preston said. "Now hopefully this pays off. Can never have too many friends."

"I don't know about that. But we could sure use the extra hands." Archer was tinkering with the holotape, fitting it into the beacon's mount. He set it to loop, and then moved to the old, rusted generator they had salvaged for the project, and powered it on. "Now, we wait. And it's time for my next move."

Preston nodded and said "Your son. You're heading to Diamond City?"

"Yeah. I've just got to pack some supplied then I'm taking Dogmeat and heading out."

"Look," Preston said. "I appreciate your help here. We all do. But I need to ask you a favor. We've built a foothold here, but we can't stop. So, if you come across any settlements that need help, try to do what you can. We need allies."

Archer was quiet, then gave a shrug. "Sure. I'll see what I can do, but my son has to come first."

Preston nodded in response. In truth, Archer didn't expect to go out of his way for any more random settlers; not unless it were going to prove useful for him. While Preston tried to maintain the spirit of neighborly goodwill, Archer had lost a lot of his faith in his fellow man the day he had escaped the Vault. The new world he found himself in was obviously dangerous and if he didn't recognize that, he knew he would be killed.

"Now, before I head out, let's check to make certain this thing works." He mumbled as he powered on his pip-boy. It really was an incredible tool and, among its many features, it had a built-in radio. The recruitment beacon appeared in a list of available signals and he connected to it with no issues, and listened as the message played back twice. He told Preston it was working and then shut it off.

Thirty minutes later he was crossing the bridge out of town with a full pack and Dogmeat by his side. Archer had stripped the leather off of a couch and, after hammering layers of it together to form a thick protective padding, he had crafted his approximation of leather armor for the faithful pooch, with a few pouches for storing food or ammo. Together, they actually made a fairly intimidating pair.

Diamond City was his destination: as Preston Described it, it was a city that had been founded in the deserted Fenway Park; Archer had felt a certain sense of satisfaction at that. He loved baseball, had played since he was young, and had taken Nate to several games in Fenway Park. He was glad that the diamond had not gone to total ruin alongside so much else. Now, it was the 'Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth' – very thematically appropriate.

They also had their own radio station – Diamond City Radio – which played a lot of pre-war music; Archer listened to it almost constantly. He tuned into it now, and allowed his mind to drift as the music came on:

 _Crawl out through the fallout, baby,_

 _To my loving arms - Through the rain of Strodium Ninety,_

 _Think about your hero, when you're at ground zero,_

 _And crawl out through the fallout; back to me_

While he constantly scanned the periphery of his senses for threats, his mind wandered as he made his way through the wasteland, pistol at the ready and rifle strapped to his back. He planned to make the journey to Diamond City in two steps: today, he wanted to make it to the old precinct of Cambridge, where he could bunker down somewhere for shelter and maybe scout out another forward station. Then, tomorrow, he would cross the Charles River into Boston, and make his way to Diamond City.

The pervasive radiation-induced heat in the commonwealth made it so that, even though it might normally have been autumn now, it was still hot; as such, he had still not bothered to find himself a shirt – he figured it wasn't truly important unless he could find something armored. In the constant sun, he had developed a bronzed tan and beads of sweat rolled down his almost bare torso in the midday heat. He moved at a brisk walk and in about thirty minutes, he had passed Concord and was on his way towards Cambridge.

Once again, he noted how little activity he came across. A few times, he approached some feral dogs or a few of the mole rats (as he had learned that they were commonly called), but they scattered with a low growl from Dogmeat or, when pressed, a warning shot by Archer. Therefore, he made it to Cambridge with relative ease.

As Archer drew near the outer rows of abandoned homes that skirted Cambridge, he noticed that his radio was receiving a fair amount of interference – this likely meant it was picking up more signals, and so needed to be adjusted to maintain its current frequency. He decided to stop to fix it. After all, it was a good idea to take a break regardless. He had been traveling along an old road towards the town, which curved to the right and around it as branches of it passed through Cambridge. For now, he broke off the road towards the right, sitting on a low boulder and setting his gun within quick reach. Activating the display of the pip-boy, he opened the radio setting and, out of curiosity, scanned for additional stations. Who knew what sorts of stations were broadcasting in the apocalypse?

He found what appeared to be an automated message, labeled by the pip boy as AF95:

"This is scribe Haylen of Reconaissance Squad Gladius to any unit in transmission range. Authorization Arx. Ferrum. Nine. Five. Our unit has sustained casualties and we are running low on supplies. We're requesting support or evac from our position at Cambridge Police Station."

This, followed by a mechanized voice: " _Automatic message repeating…_ "

Archer switched off the radio. Was this a military broadcast? It had the hallmarks of being military in nature, and he felt drawn to action. Whether it was concern or the instinctive nature of his drilling, he moved from his position and picked up the pace into the town.

It didn't take long before he began to hear scattered bursts of gunfire. Controlled. Someone with considerable trigger discipline. _Military_? He moved towards the sound, round chambered and safety off. Dogmeat, sensing his caution, crouched lower and sniffed the ground as they walked with ears perked up. The sound of gunfire lead them towards the police station and, as they drew closer, was mingled with another sound: something guttural and fearsome, like the midpoint of a hiss and a roar. Traveling down an alleyway alongside the station, almost at a jog, he saw what appeared to be a blockade set up around the front of the building; quicker than he could identify it, he saw several indistinct figures dart into it at a full sprint: Dogmeat let out a fearsome bark and jolted into action. Archer did the same.

Rounding the corner out of the alleyway to his left, he saw what appeared to be more of those rotted people – ghouls, Preston had called them – scattered dead around a courtyard while several were attacking a man in power armor; he wielded what appeared to be a laser rifle with deadly precision. The air smelled of a disgusting mix of ozone and decay.

There was no time, however, to consider this. Flooded with adrenaline, Archer sprung into action, quickly and accurately lining up headshots on the ravenous, zombie-like people who flung themselves at the soldier with unintelligent abandon. He fought his way to the center of the courtyard, clearing the area around the man in power armor, and then put his back to the building and picked off the creatures as they entered the barricade. It was tense, like a standoff, and the whole encounter lasted for several minutes. He counted the rounds as he fired them – they were a precious resource. Fifteen rounds and nine dead ghouls later, there was silence. Archer did not stir as he watched the gaps in the barricade like a hawk, pistol at the ready. After what felt like much longer than it was in reality – probably five or so minutes – the soldier declared the all-clear and approached Archer, who was now taking in more fully his surroundings.

The station had obviously been fortified some time ago – the courtyard in front of it had been enclosed in a semi-circular barricade. At the entrance, a support personnel was tending to a soldier in an orange tech suit. The other soldier, in the power armor but missing the helmet, strode towards Archer in heavy, hydraulic steps. Archer lowered his gun slightly, but remained at the ready.

"I appreciate the assistance, civilian, but what is your business here?" The man had a brusque, gravelly, and masculine voice. Of everyone that Archer had met so far in this wasteland, he was the only one who moved and fought with the tactics and discipline of a soldier.

"My name is Archer; I'm not exactly a civilian," Archer responded with a nod, "And I'm here because I heard your distress beacon. It sounded military, and so I came to find out if the military still existed."

"You're… going to have to explain that," frowning, the man replied. "We are from the Brotherhood of Steel. We are a military force, but we are not the army. The army hasn't existed for decades." Maintaining his confused expression, he said: "Name's Danse, by the way. Paladin Danse. Let's speak in the station. The situation here seems stable for now."

He barked a few orders at the support – who was evidently the Scribe Hayley from the transmission – and she led the injured man into the building. They were followed by Danse, who led a still-wary Archer through the reinforced doorway.

Like everything else in the wasteland, the interior of the Cambridge Police Station was grimy and deteriorated. This structure in particular, though, seemed to have fared better than many other buildings.

"Now – you said you aren't a civilian? If you belong to the Enclave or any other militia, you'd best tell me now." Danse said this with a low, warning tone to his voice. Whatever this Enclave was, Archer gathered it was not friendly to Danse's Brotherhood.

"It's complicated," Archer said, rubbing the back of his neck. He felt odd telling his story – it was so fresh to him, and so bizarre, that he expected disbelief. "I was part of the army before the war – for my service, I was given a spot in Vault One-Eleven, which was an experimental cryo facility. My family and I-" he paused for a moment to move through the knot which suddenly formed in his throat. "-we were frozen. Only I made it out – the others died. The rest is not important to you."

Danse was quiet for a moment, then finally: "You're a vault dweller? Most people wouldn't admit to such a thing." Archer made a mental note to keep this to himself in the future. "I appreciate your honesty," continued Danse, "but if I appear suspicious, it's because our mission here's been compromised. Since the moment we arrived in the Commonwealth, we've been constantly under fire."

"You aren't from around here?"

"No. The Brotherhood is based in the Citadel, in the Capital Wasteland." Archer nodded and allowed Danse to continue. "Look, if you're pre-war military, you might be the best-trained soldier in the Commonwealth. And if you want to continue pitching in, we could use an extra gun."

Archer weighed the options. They were military, clearly – some sort of scouting unit or vanguard. They could make useful allies. To be honest, he was still extremely light on caps given that he had only recently entered into this bizarre new economy. On the other hand, he had an objective to complete, however unclear that goal was. He had to keep Shaun at the forefront of his mind.

Practicality was screaming at him to move on with his objective. Yet he felt drawn to help this man; he sensed an opportunity here.

"That depends," he said after a lengthy silence. "How much are you paying?"

"So you're a mercenary. Fine. I'll see that you're compensated for your aid." There was a note of dissatisfaction in his tone.

"Then I'm your man. When do we head out?"

"Now. I'll fill you in on the way." With that, Danse refilled his ammo from a stash behind the station's receptionist counter – Archer did the same, taking several packs of nine-millimeter rounds. After barking a few orders at Haylen and Rhys, the dour Knight, Danse lead Archer out the door in slow, thudding steps.


	7. Entry 7

"The police station is equipped with a comms array," Danse began, moving out towards the outskirts of Cambridge from which Archer had approached. "But it'd broken; Scribe Haylen has managed to repair it mostly, but the signal isn't strong enough to broadcast all the way back to the Citadel. Therefore, our target is Arcjet Systems. They have the tech we need to amplify the array: a Deep Range Transmitter."

"ArcJet? I'm familiar with it. I worked for Mass Fusion before the war, after my service. Helped set up ArcJet's newest generators."

Danse, surprised, halted and appraised Archer for a moment before replying "It seems you're exactly what this mission needed, soldier." Archer chuckled and the armor-clad Paladin resumed their course.

It appeared to Archer that Danse was leading them along a sweeping curve around the south of Cambridge, then towards the north-east, towards the site. Seemingly responding to Archer's thoughts, Danse spoke up again:

"Curving around the town like this, I think we can avoid most of the packs of feral ghouls infesting Cambridge. Traveling this far from the station is risky, but getting that Transmitter is our top priority and I think you can handle it."

By Archer's estimation, it would be probably a half an hour or so's march to the facility. He, Danse, and Dogmeat moved in relative silence, with the exception of a brief encounter with some mole rats that Dogmeat dug up and attacked. They also encountered Bloatflies shortly after this.

They were passing by a small pool of standing water, which what seemed like two black lumps about the size of a fist rose from the water's edge and began to float towards them with unsteady movements. Dogmeat, barking, charged for one of them, leaping into the air and dragging it to the ground. The other was taken out promptly by Archer, who instinctively lined up the shot as soon as he saw it move. The lump exploded mid-air as the round passed through it with a disgusting squelch.

"What," Archer said as he approached it, "Was that?" He scrunched his nose as he drew close – these things smelled of rotten meat.

"Those are bloatflies," Danse said. "I suppose you wouldn't have seen one before."

"It's disgusting." Archer said dismissively. "Everything in this wasteland is."

"Your people did this," was Danse's reply. Archer was surprised by the tone – it was hard, accusatory. "All this waste and destruction. Your people did this. You harnessed technology you couldn't control."

With a scowl, Archer bit back; "I wouldn't say shit like that if you don't know what you're talking about."

Danse didn't reply; they moved on in silence for several more minutes.

On the edge of Archer's awareness, who could have sworn he heard a tonal beeping. He brushed it off until, only a moment later, came the call from Danse as the beeping grew suddenly louder, followed by rapid laser fire and cursing. Archer whipped around, pistol drawn, towards what Danse was targeting and was, in what was becoming alarmingly frequent, terrified into a temporary immobility.

There were several large, humanoid, grotesque figures lurching towards them at an angry sprint. They were bald, scarred, muscle-bound like coiled steel, and covered from head to toe in yellow-green skin that looked like an infection, or a sore. He recoiled physically, firing blindly towards the closest one; it was still probably forty yards away.

He noticed the mini-nuke cradled in its arm only a fraction of a second before a stray laser from Danse's rifle struck it, which afforded him only enough time to flinch away from the blinding flash of light. The shock wave of the mini-nuke's detonation, so close to where they were, was enough to send him off-balance and careening onto the ground. His ears rang and his elbow hurt from his landing, but he forced himself to roll back up onto his feet and once again bring his gun to the ready.

The mini-nuke had evidently left one of the ogres alive, and it was advancing on Danse with a sledgehammer. Shockingly, the hydraulic limbs of the power armor were only sufficient to keep the soldier locked into a stalemate with the hulking creature, as Danse fought desperately to maintain control of the sledgehammer and keep it at bay. Archer allowed his instincts to take over – dropping the handgun into its holster and swinging the assault rifle on its sling to the ready position, he flicked off the safety and unloaded two three-round bursts into the monster. It recoiled and turned to face him, and Archer saw he had only grazed its shoulder a couple of times, and landed one round into the base of its neck. It lurched toward him, closing the gap in quick strides.

Archer allowed it to close the distance almost halfway before he unloaded the clip into its chest and head and, with a heavy thud, it crumpled to the ground. There was a sudden and heavy silence as his breathing dropped to normal and he felt his heart, pumping from the adrenaline rush, quiet down over several moments. He noticed Danse approaching him and, stiffly, he stood and switched his safety back on, letting the rifle to swing lazily back to his side.

The soldier appraised him for a moment, and then said "Thanks for getting my back there. Didn't expect to see super mutants in this area."

"Super mutants," Archer exhaled sardonically. "Super fucking mutants. You all love your quant little names for all these monstrosities." That earned him a chuckle which Danse quickly suppressed. "I take it those are more irradiated humans? Like a buff ghoul?"

"Not exactly," Danse replied. "The super mutants have a virus – called FEV – that changes them into those monsters. It's complicated. But it's an engineered virus."

"Shit," Archer said with a low sigh. He didn't want to know who would deliberately do something like that.

"In any event, we're close to ArcJet. We should continue." Danse suggested this and, following a nod from Archer, they continued on their path – though they took care to skirt around the now-thoroughly-irradiated patch of scorched earth where the suicidal super mutant had been. While they walked, Archer reloaded his clips, which filled the six or seven minutes it took to arrive at ArcJet facilities.

Before the war, ArcJet had had a sprawling campus with a well-tended yard, verdant trees and flower beds, and walkways. Tech companies like that often possessed large campuses in that fashion – Archer could remember it vividly. Now, the carpet-like grass and manicured gardens were dead and barren, leaving the facility itself jutting out of the cracked ground like a sore thumb. Unsurprisingly, it looked worn but otherwise structurally intact – a facility like ArcJet was built to be durable. It had to be, because their business was rocket engines, and this facility tested them.

"You said you've been here – anything useful you can tell me before we head in?" Danse had called for a halt outside the entrance to the building, and now dealt with Archer in a very business-like manner. It harkened back to his military training. Archer racked his brain for a moment before responding.

"The structure itself has an above-ground administrative setting, as well as a large subterranean section where they tested rockets. They have some limited security measures – but with luck, their computers will still be running and I can use my consultant ID to login and shut it down. That will be in a small room off the foyer. Other than that, the tech you're looking for will likely be in the command room, which is only accessible with an elevator. So again, we need the power running."

Danse nodded. "What limited intel we have suggests that there's nobody taking up residence here, but I want us on high alert anyway. We need that tech. Are you ready?"

With a nod, Archer followed Danse into the foyer of the facility. It was empty, but Archer could see that the ceiling above the security kiosk had caved in. There was a terminal there, but the only way in would be to break the window and crawl in.

"Don't bother with the terminal; it probably doesn't work and we don't want to cause a commotion unless we have to." Apparently, Danse had read his mind. "Let's focus on our goal. Do this clean and quiet. No heroics. On me, on my signal." With a gesture, he moved on and Archer fell in a few paces behind him. He moved down a hallway on the left, past the security kiosk.

Archer was surprised when he spoke up again. "It was corporations like this that put the last nail in the coffin for mankind. They exploited technology for their own gains, and pocketed the cash, ignoring the damage they'd done."

 _Well, yes. That's how a business works._ Archer's thoughts were irate; he hadn't signed on for a lecture against technology by a man in a robotic suit of armor.

They came into a room of destroyed security robots – all of them protectrons, by the look of it. Their charging bays had been opened and the battered bots were scattered around the floor. Archer crouched by the nearest one, examining the sloped dome encasing the computing core – there were several scorch marks around it.

"These were taken out by energy-weapons fire." Archer noted. "There's no spent casings. Brotherhood's work?"

"Not our work," Danse said with a confused expression. "We gathered intel on the place, but hadn't assaulted it yet. Let's continue."

Archer noticed the familiar scent of Ozone which always accompanied laser fire; the bursts of high-frequency energy had a tendency to fry the air similarly to a lightning strike. "I think this was recent," he noted. "Very recent. Do you smell that?"

Danse nodded, and he saw that Danse's rifle was at the ready. Archer decided to holster his pistol, and swung his rifle to the ready; clicked off the safety.

They passed through a couple of empty rooms and down a small flight of stairs, arriving at a large and dilapidated chamber which had once been lined with an elevated walkway, but the length of one side of the walkway had collapsed. The chamber was flanked on either side by smaller rooms, into which he could see through wide industrial windows. He heard footsteps on the walkway above them just as Danse lifted his hand in a closed fist, prompting Archer to stop and kneel along the wall for cover. Danse shifted to the side in his bulky armor, and Archer saw, through the gap in the walkway, the head and shoulders of someone in gleaming white armor.

In a moment, he noticed that it wasn't in fact a person; the sligh gaps in the armor betrayed what looked like a metal frame and bits of circuitry. This was a robot, probably some sort of assault model. He gave a nod to Danse, who was gesturing to it, and lifted the rifle stock to his shoulder. With what was practically instinct, he brought the head of the bot into his sights and fired. The gleaming metallic dome sparked with the impact of the round and hung off of its torso by only a few wires. Out of habit, Archer fired one more round into its chest and the robot collapsed.

"Hello? Is someone there?" he heard two or three automated voices ring out throughout the chamber. "Hostiles will be neutralized. Do not resist." Judging on their sound, there was only one on their level, and a couple on the level above them. They were possible in rooms flanking the walkway. He heard Danse's rifle fire as another skeletal white robot emerged from a room ahead of them, and with a couple of rounds it collapsed as well.

 _Flimsy work,_ Archer thought as he sprinted out of cover, leaping to grasp the fragmented edge of the walkway and pull himself up. He saw immediately ahead of him another one, just exiting a room connected to the walkway, and tapped two rounds to its head. Simultaneously he rounded into the room it had just left. This, two, had wide windows which allowed him to inspect the scene while in cover. He spotted the third robot ahead. They were not tactically programmed; this one made no effort to move behind cover and, while it concentrated futile weapons fire on the industrial glass separating it and Archer, Danse took it out from below the walkway. A moment later, Danse gave a terse all-clear. Archer emerged from cover and examined the figurative corpse of the robot ahead of him.

"So, Danse." He said while he knelt beside it and took its weapon – a sleek laser pistol of the same design as the frame – and the fuel cells in an ammo slot along the robot's hip. "Do you recognize these?"

"Yes," he said in a frustrated tone. "I had hoped to avoid this. These are Institute synths."

"Isn't a synth just a word for a robot?" Archer asked sardonically. Of course, he felt that the Wasteland could come up with some more irritating, more dangerous meaning to the word.

"A synth is an abuse of technology by the Institute. Abominations, meant to 'improve' upon humanity." While Danse's face was covered by the armor's helm, his voice left no room for interpretation. He clearly felt a personal hatred for these things. "It's unacceptable. They simply can't be allowed to exist." The silent condemnation of his tone fell thick in the air.

"Alright," Archer said in a cautious tone. "What is the Institute?"

"Right. I forget that you're knowledge of the Commonwealth is limited," he replied stiffly. "The Institute is an organization consisting of scientists who went underground when the Great War started. Spent the last few decades littering the Commonwealth with their technological nightmares.

"Well, shit," Archer said. "I'll … be on the lookout." He noticed that his reactions were growing less and less dramatic with each new fucked-up discovery of what the world had become. Perhaps he had become numb to these horrors, or was becoming numb. _And besides,_ he thought, _mad scientists making killer robots is a hell of a lot more believable than huge bullet-proof lizards and literal zombies._

"Roger that. Let's move out." Without a pause, Danse made an about-left and moved to exit the corridor. Archer, moving quickly, snatched the fusion cells off the other two synths and then moved to catch up to the Paladin.

They moved down a series of corridors without much trouble – they encountered scattered hostile synths, most of which were dealt with before they could really react. Given the number of them that they encountered and how easily they were disposed of, Archer got the impression that these were a cheaper, easier-to-produce model that this 'Institute' could assemble en masse. If he was right, however, that made it likely that there were also more expensive, deadlier models as well.

Soon they found what they had been looking for: an administrative room which served as the entry into the high-security part of the facility. The room was broad, featuring a large receptionist' desk in the center of the room on their right as they entered. On the left, up a few steps was a large metal shutter which blocked off access to the rest of the facility.

"Dammit, it's shuttered," Danse said. "Hopefully these terminals work. We can lift it." He moved to the desk – the room was strewn with destroyed Synths and Protectrons – and knelt at the terminal, then said "It's password protected. Look for the password." Archer moved further into the room and cast about. There were a couple of other desks lining the room on the right, and various filing cabinets and boxes in disarray. He moved from one to the other, shuffling through papers and finding most of them too yellowed or rotted to shift, let alone read.

With frustration, Archer moved to one of the desks and booted up the terminal; part of him remarked with pride that the generators he had built here had evidently not failed. _I'm damn good,_ he thought with a silent chuckle.

The terminal was not password protected, and Archer scanned through various correspondences and invoices before coming to something promising: NOTICE OF PASSWORD CHANGE. _Bingo_.

"Got it," he announced. "I think." He moved over to the center console and input the password. With an affirmative beep, the computer unlocked and a list of prompts scrolled across the welcome screen. With a few swift keystrokes, the shutter began to lift.

"Nice job, soldier," Danse said with a note of approval. He must have done something right.

As the door slid open, they heard mechanical voices and servos whirring on the other side and Archer quickly set up behind the desk, rifle readied, as Danse took up an offensive position ahead of him. Archer waited until he heard weapons fire to duck up from behind cover, catching a couple of synths who had moved out to flank Danse by surprise. The engagement was over quickly, and they eliminated five synths total. Archer had not moved out from cover, and Danse advanced into the adjoined room ahead of him without warning. Archer jumped over the desk, moving to catch up as he heard more weapons fire.

Like before, this room was flanked on the floor above it by a walkway, and there were several synths standing along it. Archer ducked into cover behind a support pillar at the corner of the room, wincing as a stray round grazed his shoulder and burnt a cut into his exposed skin. One of them, judging by the rate of fire, had an auto-pistol. He reloaded patiently and used the sound of weapons fire to determine where the shots were coming from, generally. He peered out from cover and quickly lined up on shot on a synth that was advancing down a set of stairs at the far end of the room towards them. A chunk of metal flew off of the base of the synth's neck at the shoulder, and it collapsed backwards.

There was instant retaliation from the others, but laser pistols were wildly inaccurate at mid-to-far range. The shots mostly flew wide, with only a couple coming near him. Calmly, he lined up shots at two more that were standing opposite him, on the walkway, more or less completely exposed. The first went down, but the second one moved out of the way. Danse was advancing up the stairs, his power armor brushing off the laser rounds as if it were nothing. In the back of his mind, Archer mused that an organization like the Brotherhood of Steel might have modded their armor with energy packs which diffused energy rounds through the armor – it was almost impossible to damage armor that was thus modded with a laser pistol or rifle. Judging by the way he strode through the enemy fire with little effort, it was likely.

Once Danse breached through to the walkway, the enemy fire was drawn completely to him. This enabled Archer to move out of cover and, between the two of them, the remaining few synths were downed quickly.

Danse gave the all-clear after a minute of apprehensive silence. Archer released the tension he had been holding in his shoulders and back, and began collecting fusion cells off of the synths. He came across one whose head had been split by his round, allowing him to see the circuitry inside.

"I need a minute; I want to retrieve a few components out of this busted one." Danse gave a terse approval and Archer took a knife from its sheath in his belt; it was crude, but he managed to use it like a screwdriver and open up the processor housing. He yanked out the CPU, whose design he didn't recognize, and several other core components and stored them in an empty pocket of his pack.

After a few more minutes of gathering fusion cells, and scrounging a couple of other similar processing cores, he signaled to Danse that he was ready.

"If I remember correctly, there's an elevator here. It takes us to the command room, where the Deep Range Transmitter is housed." Danse nodded and they moved to where he had spotted the elevator. Unfortunately, it was dead.

"The power is probably out to this part of the facility…" Archer mused. "The generator is at the bottom floor, in the testing chamber off the blast room. I can take a look at it and see where the issue is."

"Alright, now how do we get to the bottom floor without the elevator," Danse challenged.

"We move through here," Archer gestured to a corridor leading out the side of the room, "down a couple of levels, and into the blast tunnel. There should be enough framework to allow us to get to the bottom if it isn't damaged."

"We have a plan then," Danse nodded. "Let's move out, soldier," and they did.

Just as Archer had indicated, the corridor led through a couple of empty rooms and a couple of flights of steps and into a huge, dark, vertical tunnel. It was circular, with a cross-section of probably twenty yards by twenty yards. They were at the top and, looking down, it seemed to extend the length of a football field, or maybe a little less. There was no light, save the low ambient glow of a couple emergency lights and the various small lights given off by Danse's power armor and laser rifle. The industrial metal catwalk encircling the tunnel and leading to the bottom was luckily intact.

They descended the metal framework. Archer could feel apprehension knotting in his stomach, and out of habit he reloaded his rifle. Reaching the bottom, a plain dirt floor of the cement tunnel, a blast door opening to a corridor branching off on his right. On his left, a wide bulletproof glass window looked into the chamber. It was dark and empty.

"Alright, Danse. The power systems are through this corridor. Let's go check them out."

"You go ahead. I'll cover the rear."

 _Alright,_ he thought. It was a pretty unnecessary move; anything coming after them would have to noisily descend those metal stairs. He wasn't going to tell Danse what to do though; he was obviously the type of man who got off on giving orders. With a shrug, Archer moved into the corridor on the right, which curved around to the left to the maintenance room. The generator in the front of the room was dead, along with the console. Moving through a door to the back of the maintenance room, he saw the auxiliary generators. One of them was still on, but upon further inspection its fusion core was dead. Archer removed a fusion core from one of the dead generators, replacing it in the working one, and saw a terminal on his right slowly tune on.

"Here we go," he said and took a seat at the old desk, the chair of which whine as its rusted joints shifted, perhaps for the first time in centuries. Archer was surprised it held his weight. He opened up the terminal's command prompts; it was password protected. _Shit._ He opened up the console commands and listed out a few security prompts. No luck.

Archer racked his brain for an old maintenance code or something. He came up short; he didn't remember this terminal being locked. With a sense of resignation he displayed the console's security matrix: a jumbled mess of numbers, symbols, and scattered words and phrases.

Luckily, since this was a low-level protection, he was able to piece together a security bypass from the lines of code. Now, prompts scrolled across the display, including an alert:

MAIN GENERATOR NON-FUNCTIONAL. AUX POWER ON STANDBY

He scrolled to an input to switch on the auxiliary generator that he had restored, and instantly lights flooded the previously-totally-dark room. His eyes took a moment to adjust; while they did, he heard a call from Danse that was followed by rapid weapons fire.

Swearing under his breath, he pulled the laser pistol he had scavenged earlier – he was running low on ammo for his rifle – and made a beeline for the window, where he saw several synths descending the metal scaffolding, while a couple tried to just drop from the top of the tunnel. He noticed a couple of them were wielding rifles, and were better armored than the others.

 _Shit_ , he wished Danse had moved into the room with him – the huge soldier, confident in his power armor, was standing in the center of the chamber and taking more fire than the power armor could effectively reroute.

"Danse! Move in here!" his call was unanswered. He noticed the terminal at the window had come to life, and displayed options for engine tests. Thinking quickly, he figured he had two options:

Firstly, he could run into the chamber and engage all the hostile synths: he counted at least ten of them, with more probably inbound. For now, their fire was concentrated on Danse.

Alternatively, he could close the blast door and engage the rocket engine, flooding the room with enough flame to destroy those bots in one move. It was possible Danse's suit could handle it; it was possible that it couldn't.

Either way, he had to make the decision immediately; Danse was going to be overwhelmed otherwise.

 _Fuck it,_ he thought, and switched on the laser pistol as he moved quickly out of the cover of the maintenance room and to the open blast door. He crouched at the aperture and immediately opened fire on the nearest units; since these pistols were so inaccurate, there was innate priority for rapid fire over precision firing.

It was difficult to move out from his position, however. The synth rifles were much more accurate than the pistols, and could fire just as quickly. He was pinned down. He called to Danse to take out one who had taken up position on the scaffolding, just out of Archer's ability to engage. Danse heard him this time, and swung the power armor's frame to face the synth, and quickly eliminated it.

Now that he was freer, Archer was able to maneuver out of cover and engage a wider variety of hostiles. Fighting more effectively, they cleared the floor and began to pick off the synths that were descending the stairs. It was an intense but brief firefight.

Danse gave the all-clear after a few minutes of waiting once the final synth had been killed. Heaving a massive sigh, Archer slumped to the ground and leaned against the cool concrete wall. His face and torso was slick with sweat and he swiped his arm across his forehead to clear it. He allowed s draft from the entrance to the tunnel to cool him off for a moment.

It was only a moment, however; Danse barked at him that they needed to move on to the control room, which was now accessible to the Institute Synths, with all haste. Archer nodded and stood with a groan.

"You know, if you had moved into that maintenance room with me, I could have killed them all with the push of a button," Archer informed him, his tone a little irate. He gestured to the rocket engine which loomed at the top of the tunnel. In the darkness before the power had been restored, it had been surprisingly concealed.

"You could have done it anyway," Danse retorted matter-of-factly. "My power armor could have handled it." The soldier in his armor, in which he held so much confidence, was facing him and he could practically see his smug expression despite the helmet.

"Your power diverter isn't as strong as you think, big guy. Those synths were close to overloading it. That engine would have fried you."

He received no reply; it was a little satisfying to shut Danse up. Archer took a minute to scavenge ammo off of the synths, swapping his laser pistol for one of the laser rifles, and then gestured to Danse that he was ready to move out. They returned the way they came, headed for the elevator to the command room.


	8. Entry 8

The elevator, newly powered, slid closed around them; it was quite crowded by Danse's power armor. Archer, whose tall, muscular figure did not exactly accommodate this well, pressed himself against the wall and wondered whether it would even work. Even if the elevator were functioning after all this time, he was certain that Danse alone outweighed its capacity. He supposed they would find out, and he pressed the button for the top level.

While he had never entered the command room during his contracting here, he figured logically that it would be at the top. Important people enjoyed that.

With a lurch and the groan and whistling of old mechanisms, the elevator began its ascent. Archer was pleasantly surprised. He was beginning to appreciate more and more just how durable his people's machines had been, and continued to be.

The elevator came to a prompt stop, the chime rang and a feminine synthetic voice informed that that they had reached the control room. Danse brought his rifle to the ready and was the first to leave the elevator, followed by Archer. There was only a small entry hall leading into the room, and already he heard the warning scripts being read by several synths who had noticed their arrival. He saw, through the doorway, the glint of white metal moving towards them, and shifted to the side of the corridor, laser rifle up to his shoulder.

Archer and Danse opened fire simultaneously, and he allowed Danse to take point into the room as he followed, more cautiously, moving from cover to cover. He wound up behind a support beam, just beyond where the entryway opened up into the room.

The command center was a tall, wide, tiered room, with rows of terminals and various communications arrays set up on two tiers. Back behind him and to his right, he noticed that the wall that the tiers were oriented towards was completely glass, so that engineers and bureaucrats could observe tests from the top floor of the ArcJet building.

To his relief, the rifle was indeed much more accurate than the pistol, and he prioritized his targets by which synths were closest and had the best angle on him; he more or less ignored Danse, who insisted on simply walking into the open and firing. In fact, Danse's lack of tact had the unintended side-effect of shifting more targets into Archer's line of sight, as the synths attempted to flank him. He noted with grim humor that the Synths seemed to have been programmed with only one kind of tactical maneuver.

Between Danse's confident advance and Archer's marksmanship, the synths stood little chance. The conflict was brief and decisive, and the scent of ozone filled the room. Danse gave a final all-clear and Archer moved out from cover, then immediately began to search for the Deep Range Transmitter.

First, he checked the communications array, where one might expect to have it installed. There was an empty slot in the transmitter, where a modification might have been attached. He wasn't certain what it looked like, but it seemed to him that it must have been here.

"I think one of the synth's removed it from the comm's array," he called to Danse with a frown; the soldier was at the opposite end of the room examining a terminal. "I think we should check these downed synths for it." Danse gave an affirmative and Archer got to examining the synths, taking ammo as he went. He found it quickly, in a pack that had been attached to one of the more well-equipped synths. He presented it to Danse.

"Are you certain this is it?"

"I'm not," Archer admitted. "But I'm relatively confident that it is. I never saw the real thing; but this piece was missing from the broadcasting array, and that seems likely what they were after."

"Agreed," came the terse reply. "The question is: what does the institute want with it?"

Archer thought for a moment; it seemed relatively simple to him. "Well these things are probably controlled remotely, from wherever the institute is buried. They probably need something that amplifies their range to communicate with their synths."

"Then I'm glad we kept this out of their wicked hands," Danse said.

Archer couldn't help but roll his eyes at the phrasing. _So dramatic,_ he thought. For a seemingly straightforward, no-nonsense soldier type, Danse had a melodramatic streak. "Yeah. Anyway, let's get out of here." He said. Then, a thought struck him. "Hey, Danse. Wanna do me a favor?"

"We're here on my mission, civilian, but continue." He supposed Danse had wanted to be the one to say they should head out.

"Will you carry one of these synths out for me? I want to take a look at it."

"No. Synths aren't for us to study – they are only to be destroyed. Nobody should even know how to make them."

"Jeez," Archer was surprised at the aggressive response. "It's not like I wanna make synths, Danse. I just wanna see how they work." Danse's response was to simply move toward the door. "Whatever," Archer sighed and followed him to the elevator. He wasn't going to carry one of these himself.

The elevator out of ArcJet, surprisingly, did not exit from the main facility; instead, the outlet for the elevator shaft exited into a small bunker that was about a quarter-mile away from the building. They moved out from the bunker, which really only consisted of a small corridor leading to the elevator, and came out in a small recess between two hills – the bunker was dug into the low point between them and had once had manned defenses surrounding it. This, Archer had not seen before.

Once they determined it to be clear – they felt the probability of encountering more synths was relatively high – Danse lowered his rifle and moved to face Archer. Archer lowered his weapon as well, waiting for whatever Danse was about to say.

"That could have gone smoother, but mission accomplished." Danse's evaluation was matter-of-fact. Archer didn't know how that could have 'gone smoother', under the circumstances. He let the comment slide.

Instead, he said diplomatically "I thought we worked well as a team."

"Agreed," Danse conceded. "It's refreshing to work with someone outside the Brotherhood who is trained and follows orders properly." There was a slight pause before he continued; he seemed uncomfortable giving praise. "That being said, I believe we have two important matters to discuss. Firstly, if you'll give me the Deep Range Transmitter, I would like to compensate you for your assistance during this operation."

Archer fished the component from his pack, and handed it silently to Danse, who placed it in a compartment of his power armor.

"I've got some caps, plus this: my own personal modification on the standard Brotherhood laser rifle. May it serve you well; I call it Righteous Authority."

Archer held back a chuckle at the name; it was so perfectly fit to Danse's personality. He took the rifle gingerly, examining it for a moment and peering down the sights. He was confident that this rifle would be superior to the inaccurate Institute one he had picked up. He thanked Danse, and hooked the weapon to his rifle sling.

"Now," Danse continued, "About the second matter I wanted to discuss. We had a lot thrown at us back there, but you kept your cool and handled it. It's clear to me you're a real soldier, and there's no doubt in my mind that you've got what it takes. The way I see it, you've got two choices: you could spend the rest of your life wandering from place to place, trading an extra hand for a meager reward, or, you could join the Brotherhood of Steel and make your mark on the world." For a moment, Archer was swept up in the confidence and the certitude with which Danse spoke of the Brotherhood. "So what do you say?" he concluded.

Archer didn't speak for a minute, weighing his decision. He wanted to join, surprisingly enough. If he were only thinking of himself, he would. But he had an objective that was incompatible with a life in the military.

"I'm sorry Danse," he began. "But I have a mission of my own. I need to find my son. As much as I regret this, I have to say no." There was no immediate response – a slight drop in Danse's armored shoulders betrayed some slight disappointment.

"Very well," he said. "I respect your decision, but this is where we must part. Thank you for your assistance." Danse didn't wait for a response before he about-faced and moved out.

Archer's fatigue caught up to him very suddenly – it was evening, and the night was descending on the hills surrounding him like dust, beginning to coat the world and subtly changing the shade of his surroundings. He retreated into the bunker and looked around – there were no rooms, per se, but the entrance to the elevator was receded enough into the bunker as to not be obvious to passers-by. He took a moment to pry open the elevator controls and cut the wires as a precaution and then set his pack against the wall. When he shut the door to the bunker, he was cast into a deep darkness once again, and so he spent the night huddled against the concrete wall. Dogmeat, his steadfast companion, curled up next to him, helping to fill the air around them with warmth.

He did not sleep well.

 _Dad?_

 _He sat bolt-upright. A child's voice called to him from the middle distance. He did not recognize where he was; a muddled grey valley devoid of features or color. He was on the ground, but felt nothing._

 _"Shaun?" he called desperately. There came no reply. He started to his feet, stumbling, disoriented. His field of vision did not change whatsoever – the landscape in which he was situated was obscured by an omnipresent grey blur. He stumbled forward, regardless._

 _He continued to call out into the void – his voice carried the hazy, distant aspect of an echo, without being preceded by any more solid noise. He himself was the echo, the after, displaced from his reality by time and space. Now, there was nothing but middle distance, a space between his life and his death. And in this void, somewhere, was Shaun as well._

 _Christ, it was difficult to move. It was difficult to breathe, and to see, and he could feel nothing. He was alarmed and at the same time he was removed from his own reactions, a prisoner to instinct. There was something very wrong. Where was Shaun?_

 _Dad?_

 _He did not recognize the voice and yet he knew all the same who it was. He cast about wildly, and yet his movement was no change in his vision was discernible as movement. There was a disorienting dichotomy between his motions, which he could feel with his body, and what he saw, which was an infinite and unending haze of grey. He called again – his voice fell flat into an empty expanse. He was crying into empty space, and he was really crying. He couldn't feel it, but he knew it._

 _Where are you? Where is Dad? Why did you leave me?_

 _A flurry of questions bombarded him from every direction. In this emptiness, this voice was the only thing that carried any definition. It was simultaneously frightened, plaintive, and accusatory._

 _"I didn't leave you," he said, turning wildly to find something, anything, to orient him in space or to show him his son. "They took you. I'm going to find you, tell me where you are, Shaun, tell me anything. Please. Shaun," there was silence. Only the static absence of sound that filled his ears. "Shaun," he repeated futilely. He said it again, and again._

 _I'm all alone. I'm all alone. I'm all alone. I'm all alone. You did this to me. You and Dad. I don't want you. I'm all alone and you did this to me. You killed me, Dad. You killed me. You killed me and you can't even find me. Look what you did, Dad._

 _Archer huddled to the ground – the voice surrounded him, closed in on him, pressed on him physically from every angle. Where before he felt nothing, now he felt the overwhelming pressure on his body and a deafening cry of the child's voice over, and over, and over, and over, and over, until it was crushing him. He shrank to his knees and pressed his hands uselessly to his ears._

Archer woke drenched in sweat and jumped to his feet, feeling a claustrophobic pressure on his skin like a tightly-drawn fabric. It faded quickly as his senses caught up to his present, leaving only the memory of his distress and a sense of futility in his gut. The bunker was not dark, but was hazily shaded as a small amount of daylight spilled through the cracks into the bunker. Dogmeat was already awake, seated in front of the door watchfully.

He had been dreaming. Dreams were uncharacteristic for him – or more precisely, it was not normal for him to remember his dreams. He didn't remember this one fully, to be honest. He only felt it slipping away, like it too was being washed away by the daylight. He could feel, though, the echo of a voice. A child's voice. He shuddered, refusing to dwell on it, and focused on his situation.

Moving to the door and opening it slowly, ascertaining that the depression between the hills was clear, he allowed the corridor to fill with daylight and moved back to his things. From his pack he withdrew a plastic-wrapped Fancy Lads Snack Cake and ate it joylessly, chewing it like cud as he woke up. He opened a second one for Dogmeat, tossing it to the pup who accepted the snack enthusiastically. He thought, absentmindedly, that the next time they killed some mole rats or some shit like that he should cook the meat for Dogmeat.

He needed coffee – he sorely missed his days of fresh-brewed arabica beans, cheerfully brewed by Codsworth. Nate hated coffee, preferring instead lemon and chamomile tea. Archer couldn't stand to drink tea – tobacco water, he had always called it. He thought for a moment about those lazy mornings. Nate's hand gently cupped in his as they browsed the paper together, read the latest issue of Grognak the barbarian together, even watched the news together. He loved how Nate would recline into him, burrowing his head into the space just below his shoulder.

With a wrench in his gut, he tore his thoughts from the subject. It was better, he had learned, not to reflect on his pre-war life. There was nothing but melancholy there.

In the meantime, he had finished his snack cake. He tossed the wrapper aside – he figured there were bigger issues with the environment than some plastic wrappers – and got up. He strapped into his weapons and his pack, pulled out Danse's laser rifle, and moved out from the Bunker. He pulled up his map on the pip-boy: with Preston's help, he had marked the location of Diamond City on it, and while the GPS functionality was no longer useful, he knew where ArcJet was on the map.

He had backtracked a little bit – moving to the west and a little north of Cambridge, but he determined that he could make the trek in one day. He would need to move quickly and avoid engagements, and he would try not to take any breaks, but he figured he could walk to Diamond City in a few hours. Hopefully, he could avoid making the journey through the hottest part of the day. With that decided, he moved out.

He had a plan to make it to Diamond City relatively safely: there were only a few notable landmarks between ArcJet and his destination. He would cross a rail bridge over the river directly to his southeast, and then continue along the northern riverbank past the old Beantown Brewery until he approached the outskirts of Boston. Fenway Park, which now housed the post-apocalyptic town, was only a little ways into the city. With luck, he thought this route would be the best for avoiding anything hostile.

Which, evidently, there were hostile creatures everywhere. He had learned a lot about the dangers of the Wasteland from Preston, and he did not like the idea of traveling through it. He owed it to Shaun, however, to see this through, and his best chances of find Shaun, or a lead to Shaun, were in Diamond City.

With his route in mind, he was underway. ArcJet sat on a hill overlooking the road down to the riverside. He surveilled his path this way and was pleased to see that the path to the river was clear. Dogmeat trodded several paces ahead of him, nose in the air and occasionally moving to investigate a nearby scent. They passed the site of the mini-nuke's explosion – which they circumvented carefully, and to which Dogmeat seemed especially fearful – and continued towards the bridge. It was a narrow but sturdily built metal affair, brick read and mostly clear except for the wreckage of a handful of traincars at the other end. One remained on the tracks, while the others had tumbled off their railing and sat on their sides in a weird heap. They crossed the bridge carefully, Archer's rifle at the ready. Dogmeat moved to investigate the cars. Archer was relieved when the hound found nothing alarming. He moved past them quickly and off of the railway once it met solid ground. Now, ahead of him and to his left, was Beantown Brewery, which according to Preston had stood empty for a long time. Still, Archer gave it a wide berth.

Generally, their trip was uneventful as they curved around the brewery and north-east to the riverbank, and followed it to the south east for a couple miles until he could see the outcroppings of a few sparse suburban houses ahead of him, just past a hill. This was when he saw Dogmeat's ears perk, and a moment later he heard shouting followed by scattered gunshots. He moved up the hill, Dogmeat at his side.

Looking down the rifle's sights, he saw a group of run-down men and women besieged by ferals. They were probably scavengers, he thought. He should let them be and move around them while the ghouls were distracted. _Better to stay the course._ He moved down the street past the engaged scavengers and ghouls, dropped low to the ground and moving quietly. Dogmeat followed him; he had good instincts. Guilt knotted vaguely in his stomach as he heard one of the women scream, but he set his face into a scowl and refused to look back. Once he had put a fair amount of distance, he stood taller and moved more quickly beyond the scene. There were no more gunshots; he needed to move quickly. Ahead, he saw an alleyway and, stopping at the edge of it, he peered down its concrete path and was met by a ramshackle wooden barricade, at the top of which stood someone in makeshift armor and carrying some kind of pipegun. _Raiders_. Archer waited for the sentry to shift their gaze and then bolted across the open alley. He held his breath as Dogmeat did the same, and was fortunately not noticed.

Diamond City was close now, just to the south. There was a street up ahead, which joined to the bridge he would originally have taken from Cambridge. He approached it carefully, examining the area down both directions, and determined it to be clear enough. He moved quickly down the side of the road with Dogmeat following close behind.

They walked a couple hundred yards further, with Archer periodically stopping and dropping to cover as he examined some alley or intersection for hostiles. He noted that the area immediately surrounding Diamond City was relatively safe, and he felt elated when he finally saw the first sign that he had arrived to safety.

Ahead of him, twenty yards, was a makeshift sign of wooden planks, onto which were painted the words: DIAMOND CITY. Just below the words, an arrow pointed dead ahead of him. He moved, relieved, down the road which was lined with signs indicating the proper path. He now recognized where he was: to his right was the familiar green wall of Fenway Park. He followed it, moving quickly and somewhat less cautiously, towards the entrance. He moved another twenty yards before he encountered a sentry on duty who seemed to ignore him as he moved.

Archer approached the guard. "Excuse me," he said. The guard fixed his gaze on him without acknowledgement. "This is diamond city, right? How do I get in?" The guard motioned towards the park gates.

"There's an intercom. You'll have to talk to Danny, but he'll probably let you in. McDonough is big on visitors." Archer nodded, thanked him, and continued down the road.

Interestingly enough, the intercom was already in use. He hovered uncertain behind a woman in a red trenchcoat and a newsboy's cap who was shouting angrily at the intercom:

"What do you mean you can't open the gate?" the woman was speaking in a low tone, clearly trying to contain a cocktail of frustration and anger. "Stop playin' around Danny… I'm standing out in the open for cryin' out loud!"

The reply from the intercom, a bashful young man's voice, was "I got orders not to let you in, Ms. Piper… I'm sorry, I'm just doin' my job."

The woman, Ms. Piper, was not accepting that. "Ooh," she cried sarcastically, gesturing in frustration to the open air. "Just doing your job?" – this in air quotes – "Protecting Diamond City means keeping me out, is that it? Oh, look, it's the scary reporter!" she bit. Then, with a sudden exclamation: "Boo!"

"I'm sorry," came the still-hesitant reply, "But McDonough is really steamed, Piper. Sayin' that article you wrote's all lies. The whole city's in a tizzy."

"Ugh! You open this gate right now, Danny Sullivan! I LIVE here! You can't just lock me out!" She was met with silence. "Open this gate, right now, Danny!" She clenched her fist and stomped with anger. There was still no reply from the indifferent intercom. Then, seemingly noticing Archer for the first time, she said nothing. Leaning towards him, she beckoned him to approach with a wave of her gloved hands.

"You," she said in a hushed tone. "You want in to Diamond City, right?"

"Uh, yeah, I just got here, but yeah," Archer said with confusion.

"Alright. Shh, play along," she said, still quiet. Then, loudly and eyeing the intercom, she continued. "What was that? You're a trader up from Quincy? You've got enough supplies to keep the general store locked for a whole month? Huh!" She gestured to Archer not to reply, then "You hear that, Danny? You gonna let us in, or are you gonna be the one talking to Crazy Merna about losing out on all this supply?" There was a moment's hesitation from the intercom.

"Jeez, alright," Danny conceded. "No need to make it personal, Piper. Gimme a minute." Danny was, evidently, irritated. There was a shifting of metal on metal and the great green door sealing off Fenway Park began to lift lazily.

"Better head on in before 'ole Danny catches onto the bluff." Piper said quietly to Archer. He nodded appreciatively and they ducked inside.


	9. Entry 9

The door, which really was more of a broad metal seal, covered in green patina, and on three hydraulically-powered arms for hinges, groaned slowly open to reveal the stripped-bare entryway to Fenway Park. _Rather, Diamond City, I guess._ Archer corrected himself with a sense of irate irony. He got the name; Diamond City, the city situated in a baseball diamond. He was getting fed up with the wastelanders' clever names for everything.

As the gate swung open and he and piper ducked inside, and once his eyes adjusted to the relative darkness of the entryway's interior, he noticed a couple of things. Firstly, a suited little pig of a man was rapidly approaching them. He was practically fuming, with squinty eyes set under bushy grey brows and above a puffy, pink face. His beige suit, while well-tailored, was clearly patchwork and in need of a thorough dry-clean. Drawing near to Piper and evidently not noticing Archer, he had already begun to bluster something in an indignant-yet-official tone.

"Piper! Who let you back inside! I told Sullivan to keep that gate shut!" His protest was punctuated with fatigued breaths – he had apparently winded himself descending the steps that led into the stadium. "You devious, rabble-rousing slanderer!" placing emphasis on each new adjective, he continued: "The level of dishonesty in that paper of yours! I'll have that printer scrapped for parts!"

Archer had placed himself at the periphery of their confrontation, watching the argument unfold. Before the man could even finish, Piper was gesturing theatrically in the air while saying "Ooh, is that a statement McDonough?" McDonough stopped talking. With sweeping motions indicating lines of text, Piper continued in an announcer's voice. "Tyrant mayor shuts down Press! Why don't we ask the newcomer? Do you support the news?" Now she indicated Archer, who was thinking he really should have just continued into the park. " 'Cause the mayor's threatening to throw free speech in the dumpster!"

Honestly, Archer just wanted to make the little man – McDonough, who was to his bewilderment, the mayor – squirm. He had always hated abusive bureaucrats. And so he replied earnestly: "Always been a supporter of the news!"

McDonough whirled around but cut himself short. "Oh, I didn't mean to bring you into this argument, good sir," he began bashfully. Archer recognized a salesman's voice when he heard it. "No, no, no… you look like Diamond City material. Welcome to the great green Jewel of the Commonwealth!" He adjusted his tie. "Safe. Happy. A fine place to come, spend your money; settle down. Don't let this muckraker here tell you otherwise, alright?"

Archer shrugged. "Whatever."

"Now, is there something in particular you came to our fine town for?"

"Uh, actually, I need to speak to some guards or someone. About a missing person." McDonough became visibly nervous.

"A missing person?" Piper interjected. "Well McDonough, are Diamond City security gonna look into this? What about all the other missing persons reports you've been ignoring?"

"- d-don't listen to her," he interrupted while bristling under her accusatory tone. "While our security can't follow up on every case we come across, I'm certain you can find help here. Diamond City has every conceivable service known to man. Surely one of our fine citizens can find the time to help you."

"Wait – so your security won't help?" Archer began, immediately incensed.

Piper, too, was outraged. "This is ridiculous, McDonough. You can't spare one officer to help? I want the truth! What's the real reason-"

"-I've had enough of this Piper! Consider yourself and that little sister of yours on notice!" With a hollow, triumphant air he harrumped his way towards the steps.

"Yeah keep talkin' McDonough, that's all you're good for!" she called after him with a fist raised into the air in frustration. Without missing a beat she turned to Archer. "Damn, a big Diamond City welcome from the mayor. Feel honored yet?" It was rhetorical; she continued without a pause. "Look, I gotta go get settled in, but er, stop by my office later. I've got an idea for an article you'd be perfect for." With that, she strode in the way McDonough went and, wanting to get away from the security booth, Archer ducked in after her.

He took a second to adjust to the bright light of day when he emerged out into the stadium. He felt a sharp twang of disappointment like bile in his stomach; all his life, even though he had gone several times, Fenway Park was a mythologized place in his memory. It was a place where he had had exclusively positive experiences: going to games first with his dad, then with Nate, despite the fact that Nate didn't care for sports; he only went because he knew it made Archer happy. The familiar sights and scents that he associated with the park were replaced by dirt, and grime, and waste. The city was less of a city than it was a small shanty-town of makeshift hovels lining the interior of the field and along every balcony. He had the distinct impression that the town was like a lichen – resilient, clinging to the stadium wherever there was space, molding itself to the shape of its substrate. If this was the Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth, then he didn't want to see the rest of it.

Piper seemed to have disappeared from view into what looked like a repurposed Airstream attached to a concrete shack. In front of the Airstream, the side of which had been removed to expose the interior, was a small girl distributing leaflets; this was probably the little sister than McDonough had mentioned. Archer passed by her into a market square, a ring of makeshift storefronts and stalls surrounding an outdoor restaurant. The banners over the restaurant were scrawled with Japanese script and manning it was a protectron unit that spoke Japanese. He approached the bar, took a stool and sat down. A man sitting next to him spoke:

"I take it you're new here; don't recognize ya."

Archer nodded and mumbled something. The man was non-descript, in run-down clothing like every other person in the Commonwealth, stubble, and a baseball cap.

"Well, welcome to the city. This is Power Noodle – that there's Takashi. Don't speak English, and don't matter what you say t'im. All he'll ever give you's a cup of ramen."

"Really? Why doesn't someone else run the stall?"

"I dunno. I guess people like him. I don't know much about 'im."

At that moment, Takashi approached Archer and said something in rapid, computerized Japanese. With a good-natured grin Archer replied. "Um, I guess I want ramen?" He fished the caps out of his bag and exchanged them for the noodles. Honestly, he was excited – this would be the first unscavenged and uncanned food he'd had since emerging from the Vault. Dogmeat sat directly in front of him, squeezing into the space between himself and the stall, and looked wistfully at Archer.

He wolfed down the noodles, digging a slice of some kind of meat out of the bowl and dropping it for Dogmeat, who caught it mid-air and practically swallowed it whole. The stranger, who had finished his and decided to leave Archer to himself, was gone. He wondered where to even begin – maybe he should start by visiting Piper? Once finished, he decided to find a place to crash. Speaking of, with luck maybe he could get Piper to crash on her couch, assuming they had couches here. He reached for his pack, ready to leave.

It was gone. _Shit. A fucking pickpocket._

He jumped up, casting about furiously for a trace of the thief. There was none. The square, only sparsely populated even though it was still only a bit past midday, gave no clue as to the direction the man might have passed. He saw no disgruntled bystanders or anything out of place; to be fair, nothing was particularly organized to begin with.

He saw a guard nearby, a man in modified baseball padding with a pipe rifle on a sling and holding a baseball bat loosely in one hand. Archer jogged over to him and, without stopping for a greeting, he asked the officer if he had seen where the man had gone. Dogmeat trotted behind him, becoming alert with the noticeable change in Archer's demeanor.

"I didn't see him," the man said without much thought to his tone. "But if I were you, I'd check the outfield." Archer couldn't tell if the guard's expression was a snide smirk, or disinterested.

 _Fuck this place,_ Archer thought angrily. _And fuck the police._ He sprinted down the side of the field, pushing past a few groups of people who were understandably offended, but whose sensibilities were not his concern.

The sides of the diamond were covered passageways that encircled the portion of the field that was inhabited. He ran out past the two rings of shacks and stores through what amounted to an alley and out into the open-air outfield. There was nothing except a few rows of bizarre plants boasting disgusting-looking purple fruit; Preston had called them mutfruit.

Archer wandered towards the middle of the outfield, looking around him in increasing frustration. He racked his brain; where in a repurposed baseball diamond would a filthy pickpocket escape to?

At that moment, he saw two men in coveralls approaching the field; one of them older, one of them middle-aged. He approached them with a frantic wave and a hurried introduction.

"Oh," one of them said with a frown once he had explained what had happened. "You must'a run into Jeb. He's sortof a menace here; he ain't got no job and no home. I think he's probably run off to the old dugout over there," the man, an older sunburnt man, said while gesturing to an area on the far side of the field from here. Archer knew where the dugout would be.

With a hurried thank-you, Archer sped off. He passed a metal shack called the Dugout Inn, which he admittedly thought was clever. Skirting it around the back, he identified old pit. Sure enough, as he approached the dugout he noticed the same nondescript man from before huddled in the dugout, poking through his bag. Absorbed in his acquisition, Jeb didn't see Archer until Archer was practically on top of him – he jumped to his feet, brandishing a shiv, but Archer twisted his arm behind him. He dropped the knife and was promptly shoved up to one of the dirt walls of the dugout. Dogmeat, with an angry bark, latched onto his leg to help. Jeb gave a sharp yelp at the hound's fangs.

"You think you can just steal my shit, you little scumbag?" Archer punctuated his question with a swift punch to the smaller man's gut. In the back of his mind, he noticed how waifish Jeb was under his baggy patchwork clothes. "Is that how it works in this shitty town?" Jeb couldn't respond as Archer knocked the wind from his lungs again. Archer dropped him and he sank to the ground, cradling his stomach. Moving to collect his things, half of which had already been strewn about the depressing hole this man called his home, he ignored the thief's mewling and whining. Dogmeat made to lunge at the man's throat, but Archer called him, snapping and Dogmeat obediently came to his side. Whoever had trained him had done a great job.

He hauled his pack up onto his back again and cast another glance at the figure. For a moment, he was shocked with himself for being so brutal. _Then again,_ came a biting inner voice, _the bastard stole my stuff. He brought it on himself._ With a sneer, he delivered another swift kick to the man's side.

"God, just shoot me," Jeb cried as Archer turned to leave. "What the fuck, man?"

Archer halted and turned back to him. Jeb was pathetic – snot and tears streaming down his face. He hadn't noticed before, but the man's eyes were tired and bloodshot. He was a druggie. "Jesus, you're pathetic." He snorted. "Is this all you do? Shoot up and steal from strangers?" In the brief pause Jeb said nothing but only sniveled and looked to the ground, catching his breath. "You aren't worth my freaking ammo." He made to leave, but on an afterthought turned to retrieve Jeb's shiv from the ground, staring him down the whole time. _No way in hell am I trusting these assholes again_ , he thought. Better to make sure the thief was disarmed.

He had a sudden urge to distance himself from what had just transpired; he was both ashamed of himself for being so brutal, and afraid that he might take his anger out further. He didn't want to find out what he was capable of. Additionally, he wasn't certain how law enforcement worked in a makeshift apocalyptic slum set into an old baseball field. For now, the best plan he had was to visit Piper.

He wasn't quite certain where he had ended up, but luckily enough he knew the layout of any baseball diamond well enough to find his way back to home plate – which evidently marked the aperture from the market to the steps out of the stadium. Piper's sister, a little girl in a tan coat and jeans with medium-length brown hair parted to one side, was still attempting to distribute fliers to passers-by. He approached her, and as soon as she noticed him she dutifully thrust a pamphlet into his hands.

"Free paper to newcomers. If the Institute grabs you in the middle of the night, at least we warned you," she said as she gave it to him. "Is that your dog?" she asked enthusiastically after she noticed Dogmeat hovering by his side. He nodded as he accepted the paper.

"His name's Dogmeat, and I'm Archer," he said. "You're Piper's sister, right?"

"That's a mean name," the girl said with a frown. "My name's Nat." she had set down her stack of pamphlets and knelt by Dogmeat, who was lapping up the attention. Dogmeat eagerly licked her cheek as she rubbed the fur on his neck.

"The Institute? The one's who make the synths?" Archer said as he skimmed the leaflet: it was titled Publick Occurences, and it was a single page of local news, which seemed largely about this Institute.

"Yup, They snatch people up in the middle of the night and no one hears from 'em again."

That sounded suspiciously like a lead. "Can you tell me more about them?" Archer asked her patiently.

"It's all in the paper; read all about it!" she said with what was either sarcasm or enthusiasm. "Anyway, Piper's in if you needed to talk to her."

"Thanks, Nat." Archer grinned and stepped up to the red door into Piper's bungalow. He knocked three times, dull thuds on the thick metal. A few moments later, it swung open and Piper, still in a red trenchcoat but now gripping a steaming mug, greeted him with a bemused expression. "Awful polite of you, Blue," she said with a chuckle and gestured for him to come in. "Most folk don't bother to knock. You ready for your interview?" He followed her in, and Dogmeat stayed behind to play with Nat.

The building was similar to a large studio apartment: it was all one large room, the back of which was cordoned off by a folding screen; where she and Nat slept, probably. The center of the room, a little closer to the entryway where he stood, had a couch and coffee table, and some other miscellaneous furniture. The entryway was sparse, with a trash can and a couple of crates for storage. He thought the room looked rather cozier than he had come to expect from the Wasteland.

With that, Archer remembered that she had wanted to talk to him about a story; it was probably unavoidable now. "Uh, yeah," he said. "I also needed to ask you a few questions." She shrugged and poured him a mug: he decided that a mug of coffee was well worth the questioning. "Why did you call me blue?"

Handing him the coffee, which he gripped tightly between his palms, and said "You may not be wearing the jumpsuit now, but the pip-boy and that fish-out-of-water attitude? Dead giveaways. You got Vault Dweller written all over you" Archer was impressed at how perceptive she was.

"Interesting," he replied. "You've met a lot of, uh, Vault Dwellers?"

"A few. Nobody who'd do an interview, though. Are you ready to get started?" With a nod from Archer, she continued. "Now here's the deal: I want your life story, in print. A little outside perspective on the Commonwealth. You do that, and I'll try to help you with your missing person. Deal?"

"Sounds great," Archer replied with a grin. "Finally someone who wants to get shit done." That got a brief laugh out of Piper. She beckoned him to sit at the couch and he did so as she fetched a notepad and pencil.

"Let's get started," Piper said. "So, you're a vault dweller. What was your time on the inside like?"

"I wouldn't really know," he said with a frown. "We weren't awake. My family and I, we were in some sort of… cryo facility. I just woke up recently."

"Wait," she said incredulously. "They boxed you up in a fridge? This whole time? Are you saying you were alive before the war?"

"I… never knew anything about a war. We heard of bombings in Philly, and went to the Vault."

"Yup," she said. Her eyes had an excited glint to them. "The Great War," she made a sweeping gesture with her free hand. "That gave us this lovely landscape of demolished buildings and nuclear radiation. Anyway, I take that as a yes." Archer nodded; he wasn't surprised at all, but he never knew that a full-blown war had occurred. He was surprised that he had never thought about it much. "That means you saw everything before they blasted it to pieces!"

"Yeah," Archer gave a wry smile. "I guess that makes me over two-hundred years old. Somewhere around two-hundred and thirty."

"Oh, my god." She said with an excited whisper. "The Man Out of Time," she made another sweeping gesture with her hand, suggesting a title. "So, you've seen the Commonwealth. Diamond City. How does it compare to your old life?"

Archer's smile fell away into a frown. "Can you even compare the two? The world out here? It's nothing like the world I left behind."

"Feeling a little homesick, are we? Can't say I blame you." Her expression was sympathetic, as was her voice. "Now, you said you're looking for a missing person, and you said you were frozen with your family. Is there a connection there?"

"I, uh," Archer began but he struggled for a moment. Piper waited patiently. "Yeah. My husband, Nate and I, and our infant son Shaun were put on ice together. Some people came and woke up Nate and Shaun, and they took my son." He was silent for a moment. He had to repress another knot that was forming in his throat. "And… they shot Nate. Who would do that?"

"Oh, god," Piper said. Her tone was much soberer. "I'm so sorry, Blue. I have to ask: do you know about the Institute?"

"Just that they make the synths, apparently they steal people, and nobody knows who or what they are."

"Do you think they may be responsible?"

"I don't know," Archer said. "It's an awful long leap, but it sounds like it may be possible."

"Not even infants are safe from them…" Piper trailed off. "And people wonder why I can't just look the other way. But I won't ask you too much about that; I'm sure this is difficult for you. For the last part of the interview, I'd like to do something different. I'd like you to make a statement directly to Diamond City. The threat of kidnapping is all but ignored in the Commonwealth; everyone wants to pretend it doesn't happen. What would you to say to someone who's lost someone but it too scared, or numb to the world, to look for them?"

"I, er, I'm not great with that sort of thing." Archer took a moment to think. He had survived thus far on sheer motivation: moving forward and keeping focused on something, anything. He had taken barely any time to reflect on his situation, how it felt, or how hopeless it seemed. "I suppose take it one day at a time. That's how I manage: I try my best to stay focused on the present, and what I need to be doing now, instead of dwelling on my situation as a whole."

"I feel that," Piper said. "That's all anyone can do, is survive." She was scrawling notes on her pad for a moment, and when she finished she continued. "That's everything. It's going to take some time to put this all together, but I think your story is going to give Diamond City something to think about." She set the pad on her coffee table; Archer repressed his instinctive urge to try to read it.

"I hope it's what you wanted," Archer said. "Never been interviewed before."

"Thanks, Blue," she said. "Anyway, I promised to help you; I've got your back when you need it. You say the word and we'll head out."

"Whenever you're ready," Archer said. "Maybe crash here tonight and then head out in the morning?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." She thought for a moment. "It'll give me tonight to write your story. So I'm gonna get to work."

She took up her notes again and moved to a desk with a typewriter, while Archer stayed on the couch, which sagged slightly under his weight, and finished his coffee.


	10. Chapter 10

Archer surveyed the room before him: a single desk occupying a space that was clearly not built for an office, in a small structure of perhaps two rooms. At the desk was a young woman, small frame, medium-length brown hair pulled back into a bun and wearing an absolutely atrocious combination of a denim vest over a khaki t-shirt, a pink floral skirt and a plaid scarf. Her hands, wrapped in elbow-length gloves, tapped away at a typewriter. Behind her were several filing cabinets arrayed in no particular order. The space was haphazard, at best.

Her name was Ellie Perkins, and with her lips pressed into a grimace she had told them that _no, Nick Valentine wasn't here, in fact he had been gone for several days on a case._ Nick was a detective and, evidently, an ex-Institute synth. Archer harbored mixed feelings about working with a synth, but a detective was what he needed and he felt that his chances of finding another one were slim.

"Look, miss, it's important. My son is missing, and I need the detective." Archer pressed. He was getting nowhere; to be frank, he would be more polite under different circumstances. The constant dead-ends were fraying his patience.

"Do you know where we can find the detective?" Piper added. Ellie's face softened a little.

"Oh, Ms. Piper. I'm afraid I didn't see you there. I didn't mean to be rude, it's just that I'm worried about Nick. Skinny Malone kidnapped a young woman, and Nick tracked his gang to a hideout in Park Street Station."

Piper glanced at Archer, and somehow, he knew there was no way around rescuing this synth. He was conflicted. With each foray out of his path towards Shaun, he felt that he was wasting time. Simultaneously, he knew that Nick was likely his best chance to get an actual lead.

"Alright," he sighed and Piper grinned. "Let's go find him."

"I knew you'd help out, Blue."

"Yeah, well he better be able to help. Come on, I know the way."

Ellie thanked them, and he could see the tension in her thin frame easing slightly. He shoved the door open to the warm humidity of Diamond City and lead the way out of the city.

The heavy gate, green with patina, lurched open after Piper dealt with Danny – he was a kid, friendly, clearly just trying to do his job well. Archer noticed, also, that there was a sort of awkward interest in the way Danny and Piper interacted. He declined to comment on it, however, and they pressed on out of the city. Park Street Station was to the east and a little north of Diamond City.

Out of the gate, however, they headed south: they had decided to move into the Mass Pike Tunnel heading east, because it would exit to the north and take them directly to the station. Piper and Archer agreed that this would be the safest route; this way, they stayed out of the open and had to maneuver through fewer dangerous areas. They moved with relative ease the quarter-mile south towards the tunnel. However, as they approached the entrance, the situation changed.

Makeshift wooden structures clung to the walls of the entrance to the tunnel like lichen: raiders had claimed the tunnel for themselves. As they got within viewing distance, Archer saw something like a small watchtower extending up from the top of the wall.

Crouching next to Piper from behind a run-down car, he fell into a tactical analysis."That's our best insertion point," he said. "If we take that, we have an entry to the tunnel as well as cover from whatever fire is coming from the behind the wall. Got it?" Piper nodded.

"I think you're giving raiders too much credit," she scoffed. "Most of 'em don't have guns, Blue. This won't be too tough." She gripped the Institute pistol that Archer had given her. Archer held the laser rifle that Danse had given him. He peered down the sites at the lone raider that was posted to the tower; Piper had not been wrong.

 _Luckily for us_ , he thought, _these shitheads are morons_.

He took the shot, and tapped the trigger twice out of habit. The first shot flew slightly wide, and the second laser burned a hole into the raider's chest. She screamed and clutched at the wound, collapsing in pain. Even from where he was, Archer could smell scorched flesh. He jumped to his feet and sprinted forward, eyes on the steps into the watchtower from the tunnel. He closed the distance and covered the steps as Piper moved forward, and as he saw two raiders emerging from the steps he eliminated them quickly: they were holding pipes and wrenches, makeshift clubs. Once Piper had made it into the structure, he motioned for her to stay in the tower and he moved to a better vantage point.

Surveying the interior of the tunnel, he was relieved. He had assumed that a gang with a tactical setup like this would be much larger, and yet there were only a handful of them in the tunnel. There were evidently only two with guns; they took cover behind cars and piles of debris as those who were less fortunate sprinted for the stairs. He and Piper dropped them easily, since the stairs made for an excellent bottleneck. The shots from the other two were wildly inaccurate, flying wide every time, and when they struck the wooden structure they did practically nothing: these were pipe guns with scrounged ammo, and their power was similar to that of a BB gun.

Piper had moved down the stairs now, against Archer's better judgement, and advanced on the pipe pistol-wielding raiders. She took one as it sprang up from cover, and the other decided to break and run. Archer picked him off from the tower.

Archer descended the steps into the tunnel, rifle still up. Piper was approaching him, surprisingly angry.

"Goddamn Blue, he was running! What'd you do that for?"

"You think he wouldn't come back once we had our backs turned?" Archer retorted with a frown.

"That's a goddamn person!" Piper said with an exasperated gesture.

"He's a raider, and he's dangerous. Even a pipe pistol like that can hurt you if you let it." Archer said. "I was in the military. I know better than to let a hostile go."

"Fuck, Blue." Piper said. "I mean, you're probably right. But damn. Let's just go." Archer nodded, and the turned into the entrance to the Mass Pike tunnel.

The journey down the tunnel was longer than he expected; driving through it in a car, Archer never realized how long it truly was. He and Piper moved through the tunnel, following it out towards the north, for a couple of hours. Their gamble paid off, however. The interior of the tunnel was largely deserted, and they only encountered scattered molerats, radroaches and one or two feral ghouls before they reached their exit.

Night had fallen by the time they emerged from the tunnel into the irradiated air. Since the events at Vault One-Eleven, a certain anxiety had accompanied Archer though the wasteland: a quiet dread that he was being gradually poisoned. Now, however, it was virtually gone, partially soothed by the sight of so many people who had been exposed for their entire lives and who were, largely, healthy enough. Perhaps this was an indicator that the worst of the fallout had cleared.

It was surprisingly cool in the square, though still gruesomely humid. Archer had always hated humidity, and Park Street Square was home to a pond that, combined with the proximity to the ocean, ensured that the air was thick with moisture at all times. With a groan, he wiped his brow with little effect. The sweat and grime from their trek through the tunnel felt as if it were caking his body.

"Hey, Piper." Archer said, "Do you care if I take a second to rinse off in the pond? I feel disgusting." She shrugged.

"You're gonna get used to that, Blue," she said with a chuckle.

He approached the pond: it was littered with debris, and it wasn't the cleanest water in the world, but Archer didn't feel picky. He stripped his pants, bandolier and pack off, leaving on just a pair of boxers, and stepped into the water. It was cool and refreshing, but he noticed the Geiger counter on his pip-boy began to tick. He decided to hurriedly splash some water over his face and body, and then climbed back out of the water.

As he was stepping back into his pants and slipping on his gear, he heard Piper begin to speak; her tone was nervous, but it was drowned out by the sound of erupting water immediately to his left. He turned just in time to see it emerging from the pond, and instantly his blood froze.

It was impossible to describe – if it had once been an identifiable creature, it was no longer. It was huge, at least thrice Archer's height, and it was a hulking mass of fat and muscle. Its body had fused, strangely, to a cluster of the swan boats that had once sat delicately on the waters surface, and it let out a monstrous roar as it burst forth from its murky home. Piper screamed, and adrenaline flooded Archer's entire being as the creature began to advance on him.


End file.
